Ed Zschau Doesn't Fit Big Blue's Mold And That's The Point

Call him the Singing CEO. Ed Zschau loves to write and sing his own songs. And he'll do it for just about any occasion. He wrote a company song for System Industries Inc., the computer disk-drive company he started in 1968. Later, he penned campaign tunes for his congressional and U. S. Senate races. Back in 1978, while lobbying Congress to reduce capital-gains taxes, he sent every senator and representative a tape of his off-key ditty The Old Risk-Capital Blues, which pleaded his cause. Recalls Zschau: "They passed the bill--in spite of the song."

Zschau's next composition may have a few verses about Big Blue. On Apr. 23, IBM tapped Edwin Van Wyck Zschau (pronounced "shout," without the t) to head Adstar, its $6.1 billion maker of disk drives and other computer data storage gear. As the world's largest such company in a fast-growing market, Adstar is one of IBM's prime hopes for a turnaround. Louis V. Gerstner Jr., IBM's new chief executive, knows Zschau only by reputation, but evidently considers him the right man for the job. He phoned Zschau to urge him to take the IBM job just one day after taking Big Blue's helm.