In the end, the PC market almost killed IBM. Remember, they ditched the PC during their restructuring, and have been doing much better ever since.
I don't think the point is "web interface", it's basic points about access and usability. I agree that the taste of the pizza is paramount, but as companies like Amazon have discovered, even a slow website, or a challenging ecommerce transaction will turn off many potential customers.
What nearly killed IBM was (1) their devotion to their 'mainframes' and (2) Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Sun, HP, Oracle, Gateway, Dell, Cisco, Juniper, Micron, Seagate, Western Digital, EMC, AOL, etc.
In particular in three years near 1994 they went from just over 400,000 employees down to just over 200,000 and lost $16 billion. Their Research Division went from 4500 full time employees down to 1000 plus about 500 'contract' employees. They thoroughly cleaned out rush hour traffic in NY counties Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess. There were suicides.
Why? One of their deepest analyses was "God ceased to smile on IBM". The truth was that IBM had their head in the sand, and Andy Grove, Bill Gates, Mike Dell, etc. ate IBM's breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snack and took their house, car, shoes, suits, ties, and shirts.
In 1984, IBM had everything in computing -- X-ray lithography, microelectronics, circuit design, microcode, computer architecture, virtual machines, mass storage, various operating systems, middleware, programming languages, productivity software, system management software, packet switched networks, marketing, and customer support, in the US and around the world. Nine years later they were nearly bust. One of the biggest extractions of defeat from the jaws of victory in all of business history. Main reason: Head in the sand. Actually, internally from various sources, both internal and external, they were always just awash in accurate and deep analyses of just what was going on. It's just that the top management had their heads in the sand. Dumb.
I don't think the point is "web interface", it's basic points about access and usability. I agree that the taste of the pizza is paramount, but as companies like Amazon have discovered, even a slow website, or a challenging ecommerce transaction will turn off many potential customers.