IBM is IBM

Press release after press release from ORCL, DELL to HPQ, there is one glaring obviousness. All these companies want to be like IBM.

But there is only one IBM, and they are years ahead of the game, with a corporate structure maximizing their innovation, product offerings and cash-flows. Not only that, but IBM is taking share away from the smaller companies the other players purchased (to become like IBM).

I have no idea why any investor would buy DELL or HPQ when they can get IBM at these inexpensive levels. (As for Oracle, I can see a solid argument to be made, but after its last quarter I would be uneasy with its hardware line.)

The only company that competes (or maybe exceeds IBM on their data analysis side) is SaaS.  (But IBM and SaaS are the Coke and Pepsi of the business analytic world.)

IBM is also so much more investor friendly, consistently buying back shares and increasing their dividend, while the others do not even come close.