Investing in some products is not the same thing as taking an equity stake in a company. Instead, consider a new kind of firm emerging in Silicon Valley
IBM Corp. sought to advance its US$10 billion on-demand computing initiative on several fronts last week, announcing new grid software for aggregating computing resources and middleware for extending business applications to mobile devices. Chief executive officer Sam Palmisano, too, lent his weight to the cause, reiterating IBM's on-demand vision before a gathering of venture capitalists and software vendors.
Large IT vendors with venture capital arms, which reaped generous returns on start-up investments over the last few years, have significantly curtailed investing during the first three months of 2001, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP survey.