We’re a more humble IBM with more of a desire to participate with our customers, IBM chairman John F Akers reveals in an exclusive interview published in today’s edition of Computerworld. The Framingham, Massachusetts newspaper is so proud of its scoop that it put excerpts out on the US Businesswire. In the interview, Akers says that as long as IBM was successful, management believed that the company was in good shape. But the cold light of day is upon us, he says, and we understand what we have to do… The vast majority of organisational and management changes are in place. The operation of our business is beginning to suggest that things are improving, particularly and happily in the US… But it takes that cold shower before you come to work in the morning to get your blood going. And our blood is going. Noting that there are thousands of customers per enterprise, Akers points out that IBM has a much broader constituency to try to satisfy, and there’s much broader array of competitors trying to do exactly the same thing. One of IBM’s primary customer-response strategies is to spend more of its development dollars on solutions. Technical competence, in and of itself, won’t carry the day at all, Akers says. Instead, he believes that US business must have a more creative outlook on how it implements its information systems. There’s no question in the minds of Japanese management about the necessity to have effective, efficient, aggressive information systems strategies, he says. There is less commitment in the US, and I think that’s a problem. Asked how the arbitration decision granting Fujitsu restricted access to IBM source code would affect the company’s need to protect its intellectual property, Akers says he is comfortable with the conclusion, going on to laud the outgoing Reagan administration for its foreign trade poicy and calls for a continuation of that policy by the Bush administration. In the final analysis, he concludes, what the world needs is to open markets and open trade, adding that he hopes the IBM of the future will be Sincerely approachable… responsive… (with) a sense of humour, that it doesn’t take itself as seriously as perhaps it did in the past. Maybe there’s a jollier 1989 ahead.
