Alfred Chandler Junior offers some perspective of the IT industry size and influence in the early '80s in his epic story of the consumer electronics and computer industries, Inventing the Electronic Century. He provides a table that reflects revenue earned globally in the early 1980s. Basic arithmetic reveals that the entire industry collected $27.9 million in 1982 - a shade over half of that ($14.6 million) went into IBM's coffers.

By contrast, according to Forbes, IBM collected just short of $100 billion last year, while Microsoft took in slightly less than $58 billion. Interestingly, and despite collecting less revenue, the software behemoth found itself ranked as the seventh most valuable company on the planet ($253 billion) while its erstwhile competitor is worth only $157 billion. Of course, long-term investors in Big Blue would have little cause for complaint - except perhaps for a little blip in the early '90s - but they could be forgiven for wondering if a dropped ball or two on the part of IBM may have left the door open for Microsoft - and others - to exploit. They'd be right.