Big Jim Kavanaugh cannot be too pleased at the present. And can you blame him much? If not Whitehurst for CEO, which would have been largely for public perception, the top job had JK's name written all over it. Like him or love him, he's a sharp business mind and has certainly carried a large burden with forward looking strategy and of course financial puts and takes. Krishna on the other hand has been busy toiling as Rometty's sidekick and personal assistant.
Favoritism and political correctness rules the day again at IBM. Long live Big Blue bluster and brokenness.
6 replies (most recent on top)
JK was never an operational guy, IMHO. Good numbers guy, but never worked in products or tech side.
AK is likely a nod to the IBM of the past - you have to know the whole business blah blah blah. The board could not make a hard choice so they wimped out, again.
They should be fired for malfeasance, paying her bonuses while the company declined.
Once JW figures out what a disaster IBM is in, he will stay until the handcuffs are off from the acquisition, then Bye Bye.....
JK was never in the running. He is talent that is being warmed up, but he has never owned a P&L. Martin Schroeter would have been the obvious pick. Thankfully it is neither of them - they have both toed the line on traditional quarter to quarter EPS management. That would have lead IBM down the continued slow, steady decline.
Ginni is now the lame duck - she really has no power, even as Chairman. AK and JW will run the show and Ginni’s only recourse of firing them would only be an admission of failure that she has shown she’s not willing to do for the last 8 years.
I don’t know if you’ve worked with Arvind, but he comes off way more as a technology nerd that happened into business than some “numbers guy” - I have never seen that side of him in numerous interactions.
IBM knows there is a whole lot wrong with them and that it all has to be addressed. If you look at the changes made, there actually seems to be a semblance of a plan there
Krishna is a numbers guy and is ruthless. Who better to fix services PLUS now he has the power to enforce the tough decisions He also understands where services has to improve as far as Cognitive and NEW ibm is concerned This is more of a getting the right folks into the right place at the right time. (note he wants to move into the Enterprise space almost exclusively) I suspect he knows he has reached the apex of his career, so this numbers restructuring/place holder job was custom made for him
Whitehurst is a CEO Selling services And maintenance on free SW bundles, but knew Redhat was not cloud ready. Who better to make Redhat cloud read and to make enterprise/middleware legacy Redhat ready. You have to make a pile of changes within IBM and Redhat to fulfill that job
Ginni will remains in control setting strategy as chairman (mostly a figurehead job) while the continuing transition occurs. Ginni was never a numbers person, technical person, or a strategic thinker, so her announcement just bought IBM a years breathing room while the other two guys clean it up. If Whitehurst doesn’t drop the ball, he most likely inherits the top job next year
Kavanaugh will continue to manage IBM’s balance sheet as it needs a lot of love and strategic improvement (debt reduction and strategic product improvement). He is most likely to move up at the end of a year
"Cloud & Cognitive have suffered under his watch" - C&C was the worst division in last quarter if not for the RH bump. Most of RH revenues do not run in a cloud data center, yet IBM lumps it in C&C to keep the charade going. Expect IBM to use hybrid cloud to extend the boundary of cloud to cover everything under the sun. If Krishna is the cloud guru and the architect for the RH vision then his track record is not that stellar. More of the same to come, but at least enjoy the honeymoon, it may be brief.
I predict Whitehurst leaves within the year. Would be great to see him stick to his principles and go run the OSI. He’s failed to take a CEO job so far and hard to see him want to try again somewhere else when he’s losing runway.
Krishna is no Satya Nadella. Cloud & Cognitive have suffered under his watch. Expect a push to do more with less and jobs at corporate for his friends from India. RIP Services.
Krishna Is mediocre at best