I completed my second day of orientation at IBM yesterday and reported for duty in my new workplace in Armonk. Two observations:

1) After 20 years as a journalist covering the computer industry, with objectivity a core element of my identity, I have now picked sides. It's strange but also empowering. I can get behind something 100%. I have not felt this way since I was on the football team (third-string quarterback) in high school. In this case, my team is 400,000 people strong, as large as Pittsburgh, the city I grew up in. That feels powerful.

2) When they handed out ThinkPads to people in my orientation group, it felt like we were military recruits being issued weapons. Maybe it's the machine itself; ThinkPads are so serious and purposeful in their design. Another factor is the quality of the laptops. At BusinessWeek, we got cheap Dell laptops that often malfunctioned. These ThinkPads are the well-oiled machine of the PC industry.