Disappointingly for anyone with hopes for the future of General Motors, the restructuring plan submitted by the automaker to the U.S. Treasury on Feb. 17 offers little in the way of a long-term comeback strategy. It's all about cost-cutting, federal financing, and making gas engines more efficient.

Management's vision of the future is revealed in a table deep in the report that lists short-, medium-, and long-term investments in product development. A total of 18 major projects appear in this table. All but three deal with gasoline power, including "strong" hybrids. Or, simply put, GM offers us more of the same strategies that resulted in the $9.6 billion fourth-quarter loss reported Feb. 26.

What more should we expect? The typical fate of corporate behemoths that flounder is either death or permanent eclipse, and perhaps GM's fate will be no different. Still, the recent past offers one rare exception that GM would do well to emulate.

Gerstner's IBM Reinvention

Like GM, this company was in its heyday an icon of American manufacturing leadership. Like GM, it faced dire threats to its very existence. Its reinvention, without the benefit of a federal bailout, was so impressive that it continues to perform strongly in the current weak economy, even as many of its tech rivals struggle.

The company, of course, is IBM.

When Lou Gerstner became CEO in early 1993, prevailing opinion was that the company could only survive by breaking itself up. As is well known, Gerstner rejected this strategy, recognizing that IBM was uniquely equipped to provide the comprehensive array of services in information technology that would be desperately needed by major companies around the world.

Thanks to a group of visionary IBM scientists and engineers, Gerstner grasped the power of the Internet before most other tech companies did. And ever the consummate salesman, he undertook a series...