The differing stances of traditional enterprise IT companies over private 5G networks provided a revealing subplot at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 earlier this month as they jostled for position after nearly all of them focused major announcements on the event. The implications for telcos were mixed, with some vendors such as HPE almost determinedly excluding them from their plans, while others like Dell at least included them to some extent in their unfolding strategies. These somewhat divergent strategies reflected the varying recent fortunes of the IT vendors themselves. For IBM and HPE, the last 30 years, and also past decade, have been roller coasters where the dips have been steeper than the rises. In fact, IBM has been in…