The now not so new CEO of Siemens has a far from easy job, it seems. Ever since he took over he has had to fight problems that looked smaller when he took over, while at the same time also needs to position the company for the future.

Now it seems like Siemens is in a clean-up mode. Not only with its bribing past but also with a range of business units itself. After Siemens announced the sale of the phone business (Gigaset lines we all know so well) it now looks like they also want to sell their PC joint venture with Fujitsu. One possible buyer could be Lenovo as rumours say. I am not an insider of course with Siemens so have no idea on its strategy but what has been irritating me for quite some time with Siemens is that they prefer to sell or close business units that are in tough markets rather than trying to fix things and do what is needed to become a viable player there as well. From the outside it appears as if they run away from problems rather than facing them. While this might fix issues short term, I wonder what they will do when things get tougher in the remaining business units as well? Selling would mean Siemens becomes a financial institute with no products or solutions at the end. Companies like Nokia with its handset business or Swatch with watches have shown that you do not need to run away from highly competitive, low-margin businesses but can turn things around and become a profitable business. This of course would mean you become the best in your product market and not a simple also-run. At some time they need to face the enemy I guess.