All we got from IBM Corp’s James Cannavino’s presentation on Tuesday was excerpts from his speech (CI No 1,921) whereas of course all the interesting stuff was in the question and answer sessions, where he inter alia said that OS/2 2.0 shipments were going well, with 200,000 copies sold in the six weeks since the thing was launched, and that another 200,000 copies had gone out electronically and through licensing arrangements. He also declared that IBM will not sell a personal computer clone, despite recent suggestions by other IBM executives that IBM would be doing so. The IBM company isn’t going to sell clones,, James said. You want a clone strategy? That’s the IBM clone strategy. In response to the gossip that IBM will start selling a clone in Europe shortly and that it has been investigating acquiring Northgate Computer Systems Inc, Cannavino said IBM was merely trying to learn more about low-cost personal computers and ways to sell them. He said IBM still might take an equity position in a company such as Northgate but that it wouldn’t go beyond that. Cannavino said he felt that his manufacturing costs had been reduced enough that he wouldn’t benefit from reselling a clone – costs are so low at Greenock, Scotland, he said, that clone companies could probably buy motherboards made there and resell them at a profit. The confusion about the clone strategy apparently arose because different IBM executives had different agendas, and the reorganisation that IBM went through in December has made them increasingly free to pursue those agendas, Dow Jones comments seems it has marketing executives in different parts of the world that have wanted IBM to start selling clones and effectively have been trying to bounce the company into going into the business.
