Now that IBM Corp is in long-term decline, evolving into just another big company like Xerox Corp or General Motors Corp that has seen much better days, market-makers are looking for another bellwether to signal the direction of the entire market, the Wall Street Journal reports: the general feeling is that no one company fits the bill, but the combined market capitalisation of Microsoft Corp and Intel Corp now exceeds that of IBM by 50%, and one well-supported suggestion is a triumvirate of Microsoft, Intel and Apple Computer Inc – in other words IBM’s former strategic partner, the company where it once held over 20% of the equity, and its current desktop partner – as Hesh Wiener comments, in mythology, the gods eat their children, in computers it’s the other way round.
