They were mainframes, PCs and Operating Systems. Now they're out of PCs and home operating systems. They've gotten much bigger on corporate services: They co

They were mainframes, PCs and Operating Systems. Now they're out of PCs and home operating systems. They've gotten much bigger on corporate services: They compete with Accenture on large software implementations, and do big EDS style outsourcing projects. In doing this they've shifted away from hardware preferences. They've also bought many enterprise software packages which lend themselves to implementations and ongoing support. From a shareholders perspective Gerstner was very aggressive about share repurchases, or giving money back. One problem with big companies is they get so much money that they start wasting it. A company can appear very large and strong, but do nothing for the shareholders, if they're just pissing away retained earnings. (One could argue that Microsoft was guilty of this)