It was an impressive debut, even by the standards of Big Blue. Some 2,000 computer dealers from across the country gathered in Miami Beach last week for a Beach Boys concert, the premiere of new print and TV commercials reuniting members of the M*A*S*H cast and, most important, an elaborate presentation beamed live to 20,000 customers, analysts, employees and reporters nationwide. Before the spectacle ended, the world's biggest computer company had set a new standard against which personal computers will be measured for years to come.
Ever since IBM began losing sales to low-cost domestic and Asian knockoffs of its original...