With its new Workplace product, IBM (IBM ) has launched a frontal attack on Microsoft's (MSFT ) dominance of the desktop, but you can expect to hear Gates & Co. repeatedly shrug off the assault as the latest in a long line of blanks fired at the world's most successful software company (see BW Online, 5/10/04, "Office, Beware -- Here Comes Workplace"). Don't believe it. IBM's move could actually prove to be the biggest threat to Microsoft's hammerlock on PC software since IBM was pushing its own competing operating system, OS/2, from 1987 through 1996.
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Source: BusinessWeek