Frank Quattrone is conservatively dressed in a suit and tie, and a little nervous. He does not want to talk about himself, not even about his low golf handicap. It is only when discussing technology mergers that he relaxes and becomes animated.

He muses over what companies Dell and Hewlett-Packard should buy to protect themselves from Cisco’s encroachment into their server businesses, and wonders where this will leave IBM. More than golf, this “three-dimensional chess” is his game of choice.