SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
Compiled by David Olmos, Times Staff Writer
IBM is headed for more trouble in 1988, a market researcher predicts. Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., forecasts that sales of IBM’s large and midrange computers will remain soft in 1988. But it predicts strong sales of IBM’s new personal computer line, the Personal System/2, and several new communications products.
“The shift of the computer industry’s focus to PCs is hurting IBM’s mainframe sales,” John C. McCarthy, a Forrester analyst, said in a recent report. “At the same time, the company’s midrange product line is in disarray.” Forrester is predicting that IBM will post poor profits for the first half of 1988 and announce a corporate restructuring in July, 1988.
