I think everybody at IBM knows the early 1990s disaster, and it's in our fabric that you cannot miss the ship.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I want to take IBM back to its roots.
The next thing is: we can make IBM even better. We brought IBM back but we're gunning for leadership.
You cannot have companies where many of the largest ones lose money indefinitely without someone finally waving the white flag, and IBM is the most recent example of that.
Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new.
We call the fates of the Titanic and the Concordia - as well as those of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia - 'accidents.' Foreseeing such undesirable events is what engineers are expected to do. However, design trade-offs leave technological systems open to failings once predicted, but later forgotten.
At IBM, if we kept our same leadership for 36 years, we'd be bankrupt.
We can learn from IBM's successful history that you don't have to have the best product to become number one. You don't even have to have a good product.
What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.
You know, IBM was almost knocked out of the box by other types of computer software and manufacturing.
IBM has a very solid business image.