Every IBM watcher worth his salt insisted that the company’s delivery dates for the new 9370 departmental 370s, announced in October, were extremely conservative and that IBM would bring deliveries forward by at least a quarter when the time came. And on Monday, IBM indeed announced that it had moved US deliveries up – but only from September to July for the low-end 9372/20, and the 9375/60, and from December to October for the 9375/40 and top-end 9377/90. Analysts believe IBM has taken between 40,000 and 45,000 orders for the machines, but many of those could turn out to be phantom orders placed simply to reserve a position in the delivery queue in case the box turned out to be superb and sold out for years. IBM has indicated that the main reason for delay has been getting adequate support in place at a cost acceptable to IBM (CI No 632).
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