Honest A, an investor and/or the financial market does not care what the similarities or differences are between companies, but how investments in those companies do. Microsoft and IBM were major players in the personal computer business, and subsequently both have had a heavy presence in enterprises and data centers. IBM is gone from personal computers, although Microsoft's products probably figure heavily in IBM's consulting.
could easily compare IBM with other companies; google didn't have a presence prior to 2000, Apple pre 2000 and post iphone are entirely different businesses, nothing else came to my mind. Amazon? they were around in early days of the dot com (1994!) but I'm not really that familiar with where they stood back around 2000 and didn't want to sample apples and oranges. IBM's other competitors like Digital disappeared, but not because IBM gobbled up their share.
IBM compared to itself has not grown. Other companies have grown, through survivorship bias if no other reason.
could easily compare IBM with other companies; google didn't have a presence prior to 2000, Apple pre 2000 and post iphone are entirely different businesses, nothing else came to my mind. Amazon? they were around in early days of the dot com (1994!) but I'm not really that familiar with where they stood back around 2000 and didn't want to sample apples and oranges. IBM's other competitors like Digital disappeared, but not because IBM gobbled up their share.
IBM compared to itself has not grown. Other companies have grown, through survivorship bias if no other reason.