Well we got that one wrong, and how! A year or three back we considered the way the IBM-compatible mainframe market was going and judged that there would soon be no room for four manufacturers in the market – and came to the conclusion that since it is the only one of the four that doesn’t live and die by computers, diversified electrical and electronic conglomerate Hitachi Ltd would be the one to throw in the towel: the analysis was correct but the conclusion quite wrong – but then we never dreamed it would be IBM Corp that would be the one to abandon the manufacture of large mainframes!
