Leader: IBM exiting PCs? Why not?

IBM may well be about to get out of the PC business. We may still talk about the IBM PC (some of us, anyway) but no longer IBM PCs.

Should we be surprised? No.

The argument has long been that even if IBM loses money selling PCs - and in recent years it frequently has - those sales are still a foot in the door, a route to selling higher margin servers, software and services.

But does a desktop refresh contract sway a CIO to buy a new mainframe, standardise on certain middleware or even sign a mega-outsourcing contract? Maybe just a little.

IBM is being tight-lipped about any sale. We can only assume that's all about timing. We're not saying that the sale, rumoured to be worth anywhere between $1bn and $2bn, is a done deal, only that it might not be finalised yet.

This publication thinks the sale is inevitable. In Sam Palmisano, IBM has a CEO unafraid to make such a decision and it could be that there are other PC manufacturers out there that want to buy the business. The rumours have it that China's Lenovo is the suitor and why wouldn't an Asian company be the one that sees the value?

There haven't been mass PC makers in Europe for some time. In the US, only Dell continues to do well at a high volume, the highest, in its case.

No, the more interesting question must be what will happen over at HP. Just this week its CEO said in an interview that its PC operations won't be hawked off, no matter what the immediate challenges - which are mainly in the form of, you guessed it, Dell and Asian manufacturers.

HP's PC arm contains remnants (mainly in the form of personnel) of its own, organic PC business, Compaq's, even DEC's. All great names in PCs at various stages, all able to reflect on past glories.

We imagine IBM and HP will end up exiting PCs to concentrate on more fertile areas, but only one company seems to be a lot more comfortable with such a future.