Discussion on:

From Big Blue to Best Buy?

I have spent many years, in several organisations, under the influence of Senior Managers who would not look at anything unless it was Enterprise class. Meanwhile a lot of people were deserting the expertise of the IT Department and doing their own thing. There was I stuck in the middle having to support my Managers while secretly agreeing with the end users.
The net result of this was that technologies were introduced that were difficult to manage, reduced security and had set an atmosphere of conflict rather than cooperation between IT and the rest of the organisation.
Most of the issues could have been avoided or solutions found, with cooperation.

Perhaps not:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2012/03/29/death-of-best-buys-big-box-store-company-will-shift-to-new-model-close-50-existing-stores/?ref=linkedin

You add in the GFC. The effects of which will be felt for some time yet. Consumer stores (the larger ones in the market at this point) are in a state of flux. That is they are trying to reconfigure there structures to be able to simply stay in the market. Consumer spending has not been forthcoming as was hoped. Confidence in business is still low, sovereign debt in Europe is still very unstable. For example one of the largest euro-zone nations Germany is expected to hit negative growth for at least q3 and q4. One more quarter and technically thats a recession. Germany and France are the largest contributors (in Europe) for the bailouts of the soon to fails ( Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland etc). Most of these nations have little to build there economies with.
Will who you buy from be around long enough to give needed after sales support?

It's a shame that Best Buy has just shut down in the UK.