International -- Readers Report

BIG BLUE COULD USE MORE MAVERICKS (int'l edition)

Reading your article about how IBM stands relative to Hewlett-Packard, Digital, Compaq, Dell, etc. ("IBM: Back to double-digit growth?" The Corporation, June 1): It struck me that what the company really needs today is a good skunk works. [IBM's] Don Estridge started one in 1981 in Boca Raton, Fla., in an old, leaky-roofed warehouse with malfunctioning air-conditioning. Eighteen months later, the PC was ready for the market. Much the same way, Ake Lundqvist saved L.M. Ericsson, the Swedish telephone manufacturer, when in 1983, practically out of sight of top management, he initiated and then carried out the company's mobile-phone project.

Christer Danielsson

Akers Styckebruk, Sweden