While embroiled in the world of the IBM mainframe, writes The Wall Street Journal, James Cannavino was once heard to quip that if the Lord had believed in distributed processing, he would have put brains in our wrists. But if Cannavino’s December promotion to the post of president of IBM Entry Systems has forced him to reconsider his private evolutionary beliefs, it appears to have left his corporate missions intact. In the first press conference hosted since his appointment, Cannavino summarised the current installation complexities of IBM’s OS/2 operating system as daunting, intimating that the streamlining philosophy he pioneered in the mainframe environment will shortly be brought to bear on OS/2. Second came a continued pledge to enhance inter system communications – specifically through forging networked PS/2 workstation-to-mainframe links. A decade ago very few desktop workstations communicated, said, (a repentant?) Cannavino; by 1999, however, he believes that very few won’t. He also had a special message for small businesses and home users, claiming that far from neglecting them, IBM was going chase those markets across the board. A chirpy, straight talkin’ Chicagoan, Cannavino is being hailed as a charismatic contrast to his True Blue button-down predecessor, Bill Lowe. Taken on by IBM at 18 as a repairman, he is also one of a tiny minority of IBMers to penetrate the higher corporate echelons without a university degree. He is married to an IBM programmer and lives in Dutchess County, New York. Off duty, Cannavino describes himself as a gentleman farmer, and includes hay making among his leisure pursuits.
