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7h ago

Lou Gerstner, IBM’s Turnaround Chief, Dies at 83

The company disclosed no cause of death, with a memorial planned early in the new year.

Louis V. Gerstner Jr. the new chairman and C.E.O. of IBM starting April 1 speaks about his plans for the struggling computer giant during a press conference in New York on March 26 1993/File Photo
IBM
IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Louis Gerstner speaks to the Second International Harvard Conference on Internet & Society at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 27, 1998./File Photo
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Overview

  • IBM said in an email to employees Sunday that former chairman and CEO Louis Gerstner died Saturday at age 83.
  • No cause of death was provided, and IBM plans a celebration of his legacy in the new year.
  • Gerstner, IBM’s first outside chief executive, led the company from 1993 to 2002 and decided to keep IBM together rather than break it up.
  • He shifted IBM’s focus from hardware to services and middleware, made early bets on e‑business, and executed restructurings including asset sales, product cuts such as OS/2, and about 35,000 layoffs.
  • Under his tenure services revenue rose from $7.4 billion in 1992 to roughly $30 billion by 2001 as IBM’s value rebounded, and he is survived by his wife Robin and daughter Elizabeth after being predeceased by his son Louis III.