In fact, he did so well, he was accused of poaching orders from his fellow reps. He remembers his buddies would work half a day, literally taking orders over the phone, then take off for the golf course. He did suggest to IBM management that money could be made by selling data processing services, a concept so novel that IBM rejected it almost out of hand. This ruling went against IBM, who was forced to give up its Service Bureau business. You will all recognize how common this practice is today.
Timing is everything.
In the 1980s, the feds had IBM in court again, this time on charges of monopolizing the mainframe and large storage device markets. This was serious. Employees received regular updates as this worked its way through the courts. As an employee of a great corporation, I was fierce in defending IBM and its business practices. As a member of IBM's smallest business unit, K-12 Education, I thought that spinning us off might be a good idea.