IBM rewrites IT game with uber-services push

Burning down the house

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 7th August 2002 13:29 GMT

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IBM is poised to 'burn down' the IT industry and rebuild it in its own image following its recenet acquisition of PwC Consulting.

That's the colourful warning from market research outfit Summit Research which says that rival vendors need to retool their strategies in response - or else.

IBM has already used its services organisation to change the rules of IT industry competition but Summit Strategies' Tom Kucharvy believes it is now engaged in taking this approach much further.

IBM is creating a new services-based business model by combining its services-led sales and delivery capabilities, and adding a 30,000-person, vertically focused business-process consulting team, he says.

This will give IBM access to executives higher up the enterprise food chain and likely to allow it to achieve "inherent, potentially breakaway, advantage over competitors."

In his report The New Blue: Can IBM Burn Down the IT Industry and Rebuild It In Its Own Image?, Summit's Kucharvy examines IBM's vision for a new IT world and evaluates the opportunities IBM's strategy will create for partners, as well as the challenges it will pose to competitors. ®