Du Pont, which has a strong OEM and VR base in the US, will carry on alone. Companies are refocusing on what they do best and where they can be in the top three in a world or regional market.
Jim Porter, president of the market-research Disk/Trend Inc., agrees with IBM that it is better positioned to do OEM business than in the past.
'On the whole OEM and our brand name business complement each other,' he says.
"The design is based on the simple philosophy that the car's music system is meant to be heard and not seen," says Jerry Firth of the Bose OEM Division, which is supplying the systems.
ICL, for example, stopped buying its systems from Acer, one of Taiwan's biggest OEM suppliers, following a feasibility study by consultants KPMG.
Mr. Bowles acknowledges that IBM is pushing into the OEM business partly for defensive reasons, to soak up some of the excess manufacturing capacity it has developed by making products with fewer people.
The company's decision to follow the industry trend to OEM agreements, which have lower profit margins, underscores how hard it's pushing for PS/2 sales, analysts said.
The statement added: "In the course of the conversation with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Lowe mentioned Olivetti as an example of companies that could be considered for OEM arrangements.
IBM's future OEM accords will be with relatively minor competitors like Ferranti, rather than with major rivals such as Amstrad and Olivetti, analysts speculated.