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SCMP Reporter

IF outward appearances are anything to go by, then the IBM Personal Computer Company has, indeed, come a long way in the past 14 months.

  For one thing, senior executives have discarded the rigid IBM corporate uniform (dark suit, red tie) in favour of a somewhat Scully-esque ensemble of open-necked business shirt with a ''friendlier'', tweed/corduroy jacket and trousers.

  And, for another, the newly independent business unit is now paying its way, burying, finally, the reputation the PC business within the corporation was a financial albatross.

  The IBM Personal Computer Company, overhauled and granted far greater autonomy in September last year, is in the midst of a not just credible, but spectacular, turnaround.

  At the trade's Comdex show in Las Vegas last week the company appeared to shift gears upwards, raising its (new and trim) profile still further and, according to some, raising the bar on what a personal computer should be.

  The changes at the IBM PC Company are not subtle.

  The company is expanding at a phenomenal rate, with the PC Company's surprisingly affable president Robert Corrigan putting growth at 21/2 times the industry rate.

  The IBM PC Company is expected to top US$10 billion (HK$77 billion) in revenues this year, making it the world's largest by a long yardage. Mr Corrigan claims to have widened the company's leading marketshare from its nearest rival.

  There is a sense of urgency among top officers.

   Product cycle turnarounds have been shortened dramatically.

   The company has become more aggressive.

  Finally, the company appears to be following a clear, concise and confident strategic direction - a somewhat startling development to many IBM watchers who have long been used to the ''Big Blue's'', more bureaucratic culture.

  ''A year ago, we were staring at potential disaster,'' Mr Corrigan told a gathering in Las Vegas last week.

   ''We had become uncompetitive as a business because we had stopped listening to our customers,'' he said.

  ''Then we made a radical turn, and gave ourselves one precise objective, to do anything to captivate these customers, and do it faster than ever,'' he added.

  Users in Asia can be forgiven for perhaps not noticing this seemingly hyper-activity of the PC company - and the fact that the IBM PC business in the region looks - if anything - low profile.

   The company first targeted North America, then Europe and South America, and was just now turning its attentions to Asia, Mr Corrigan said.

   It was now Asia's turn, he said, with a significantly ramped-up focus on the region (in China particularly) planned over the next three months.

  It may or may not be of significance that two of the three IBM Personal Computer Company senior executives that report directly to Mr Corrigan - Bruce Claflin and Bill McCracken - have spent time as senior corporate field officers in Asia.

  Since September last year, the company has integrated all activities on a worldwide basis, from purchasing to sales support.

   It has created new brands at different price points, thus establishing new marketing channels.

  It is getting product to market every six months or so, and has established market ''listening posts'', to effectively keep track of customer satisfaction.

  ''And all of this effort is paying off in many ways . . . we're widening our lead in marketshare on a worldwide basis, our technology is leading edge and our products are priced to sell,'' Mr Corrigan said.

  But while remaining competitive in the PC industry was necessary, Mr Corrigan said it was not enough to put the company ahead of the game.

   And while the company had won various ''best of breed'' awards for products, prizes did not differentiate it for long, he said.

  ''Something else was required - not a better breed of product but a different breed,'' he said, ''one that puts the IBM Personal Computer Company in a very different place.''   IBM used the Comdex show to launch a ''natural computing'', campaign.

  This was a research and design programme that aimed not just to address ease-of-use issues (though that forms a significant thrust), but to entirely alter the way people interact with computer systems, and the way those computer systems fitted in societyat large.

  The strategy (which is global by nature) looks to address not just ease-of-use issues, but rather aims to minimise a computer's physical impact on the user and the environmemt. That means doing things like improving ''comfort'' levels (how can eye-strainbe reduced . . . how can the keyboard be made more comfortable?).

   It also means finding better ways to dispose of systems once they become obsolete rather than dumping them in landfills, or ensuring environmental factors like improved energy consumption levels and only using recycled packaging on delivery.

    IBM PC Co clearly wants to leverage the strength of its corporate research and development efforts more than it has done in the past, becoming more pro-active in getting raw developments out of the labs and into commercial products in a more timely fashion.

  For example, the company used Comdex to demonstrate its voice-recognition software known as IBM Continuous Speech Series as the interface to a personal computer.

  Continuous speech capabilities (recognition that would be akin to conversation) might be a little way down the development track, but as a navigation device on a standard PC, or simply as the pointing device, Mr Corrigan said there was no reason why suchcapability should not be able to be incorporated into machines today.

  ''The end user should have the choice as to what they use as the interface to the machine,'' Mr Corrigan said.

  Voice recognition has been an area of interest to IBM researchers for more than two decades and, not surprisingly, is an application in which IBM has a clear lead.



IBM PC opts for big changes