Ah, you are dredging up memories.

I've done both marketing and engineering. I managed a group at RTP responsible for a part of the engineering for PC, Thinkpads, and the Server group. While I had people go to Greenock, I never went personally. So, in some sense, I don't feel like I can give an adequate impression and background.

I will tell you that our team out of Greenock had a big impact on manufacturing, and some real live wires. I remember being at home on the weekend, and have a VP of manufacturing hunt me down to say words that normally IBMer wouldn't say in that I was bringing down his line. It really was the stereotypical Scottish Soccer fan type interaction. In this case, it turned out that it wasn't my group. After I left IBM, I ended up supplying tech to all my IBM competitors. I observed what I thought was basically all of IBM processes in their processes. Similar terminology that I know started at IBM. While we did see some people move, a big part of this was the supplier base.

We did do a lot of work with outside resources. For example, we "qualified" power supplies, but we basically did co-engineering. Part of our problem in that we would significantly change everybody's product, then they would sell it to Dell or Gateway. This was a very quick path to get your processes into the comp as the suppliers would "suggest" things that they had learned at IBM.

The hard drive issue is a bit more subtle. IBM was not the original supplier to our own PCs--and they had a melt down with a massive recall. I don't remember us making hard drives in Scotland. I remember Mainz, Rochester MN, San Jose, and Fujisawa. The PC client group took almost exclusively Fujisawa products. The server group worked to take San Jose/Rochester server products. Rochester was the 5.25 and then 3.5" lines for AS/400, so they were at first leading with the PC server group. I will relate that I think HDDs were always the #1 reason for Quality No Ship (QNS), mainly due to shock specs, which got better over time.

As to the delivery of tech in the UK. I would state that it is similar inside of the USA. Try as many want, tech seems to be focused in the New York, Bay Area and in Puget Sound. While I was in RPT, and this state killed themselves to get tech (including 3 incredible Universities right next door), for some reason it never turned into a tech hub. Without research, I would state that there is also an element of chance or luck that gets a region going, and can't be planned for. However, maybe your just pointing out that UK never even gave themselves any chance, which I am just not close enough to understand.