Last week, a crowd of 200 business reps and government officials piled into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Washington headquarters for the organization's annual State of American Business conference.
After Gerstner granted approval for a new, independent software business, the organization's first decision -- described by insiders as "gut wrenching" -- was to put its key software products, most notably CICS, MQSeries and DB2, on its competitors' platforms, specifically Microsoft's NT.
Lawson has announced his intention to depart on 11 January to head up the U.S. -Russia Business Council, the successor organization to the now-defunct U.S.-USSR Trade and Economic Council (USTEC).