The jury is still out on whether Louis Gerstner will prove the saviour of IBM Corp or its nemesis, but we have to say we are with him on his determination to hack away at the impenetrable IBM acronym jungle: it’s pretty clear that when he arrived, he didn’t understand a word anyone was saying when they started LOBbing around jargon like DASD (come again), Enterprise Systems (don’t we sell most of our systems to enterprises?), Technology Products (aren’t all our products technology products?) – and if LOB – for Line Of Business, is mercifully verboten, can SOD (I didn’t realise what a fouled-mouthed bunch all you IBMers were) – for Statement Of Direction – be far behind?
