BusinessWeek has an excellent article on IBM’s business makeover which discusses how, as their operation evolves, it’s becoming less grounded in real products (which are more and more just commodities) and turning increasingly to “virtual” services. This provides an excellent example of the flipside of VR: as virtual worlds and simulations become increasingly realistic with graphics and simpler interfaces, real world operations are migrating towards them as well. I think there’s a collision on the horizon – a “rebang”, if you will. Even if IBM fails, the trend is there. Now let’s wait and see if Big Blue can successfully shed that earthbound hardware heritage.