A year ago: IBM Ts&Cs roost in Turkey

The aficionados of the goings on at the now-renamed IBM PC Co will remember that we had many a joke at the expense of Mike Lunch, who is now to take another job at Big Bluell. We suspect that means no more breakfasts with Mike, who formerly worked for Toshiba and was poached from there by Nick Coutts, himself poached by David Winn, ex Amex guy, who was himself poached by Lou Boots Gerstner. As reported over the last two issues, IBM is revising its Ts&Cs and is, indeed, taking a fresh look at that old canard, price protection. All the senior guys at Big Bluell were in Turkey last week, as they all scratched their heads about what they were going to tell the world about the Ts&Cs when they had to return from the casbah to the cold world of reality which is Emea. PCs will only be one part of the "new deal" for the Business Partners however, who are likely to be told the worst when IBM spends a stack more money at a conference for them in the US. The name of the game, also as reported here before, is now NCs and everything takes a back seat to those in Boots Gerstner's eyes. IBM will now operate a two week stock rotation system on all of its PC products including notebooks and the infamous NetFinity servers, The Register understands. Readers will remember that Big Bluell told us several weeks ago that the changes were in the offing but when pressed, refused to buzz. Lunch is to take an unspecified channel role within IBM Emea but we should not forget that in the past he sold RS/6000s. The business partners will also be served up with cold turkey slices when IBM finally deigns to unveil its other cunning plans toward the Ts&Cs in the next few weeks. Just talk to your favourite distributor to discover the hard truth. ®