"Think about the auto industry. Why is it possible to ship iron ore and coal to Asia, where they can build a car, then ship it back to the USA and sell a better product at a competitive price? The answer is QUALITY. When your QUALITY is crap, your costs increase. You compensate by throwing more and more people at the problems that result from poor quality. When you try to cut costs, the problems increase and the quality suffers even more. IBM is in such a death spiral, and it is a direct result of a management decision to sacrifice quality and NOT to properly invest in improving and automating its services businesses."

Robert X. Cringely (Why IBM is in trouble)