b' In 1990, IBM had its most profitable year ever. By 1993, the computer industry\nhad changed so rapidly the company was on its way to losing $16 billion and IBM\nwas on a watch list for extinction -- victimized by its own lumbering size, an\ninsular corporate culture, and the PC era IBM had itself helped invent.\n\nThen Lou Gerstner was brought in to run IBM. Almost everyone watching the rapid\ndemise of this American icon presumed Gerstner had joined IBM to preside over\nits continued dissolution into a confederation of autonomous business units.\nThis strategy, well underway when he arrived, would have effectively eliminated\nthe corporation '