I wasn’t going to do this post until I learned IBM PR is out browbeating reporters (one of the rare
activities where the company is still world class) for being “too harsh” by including actual
performance metrics in stories about IBM’s CEO transition.
Big Blew Corporate goon squads leaning heavy on journalists: IBM has sunk to new lows.
Ginny Rometty was CEO of IBM for less than a decade, but kudos to the company for an
uncharacteristic bout of out-performance by packing more than a decade’s worth of decline into
just eight years.
It's as succinct and concise of an assessment as I've seen thus far.
The biggest mystery is not why it took the IBM board so long to replace Rometty (though that is
certainly a mystery), but why they decided to replace her with another IBM lifer in Arvind Krishna
while all but dubbing him “interim CEO”. By elevating former Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst to
President, the company has signaled he’s up next and the clock is ticking on Krishna even before
he has served a day as CEO. Why isn’t Whitehurst ready for the big job today? Does he need to
improve his COBOL skills? Or does this portend IBM being split up? I’m not even remotely an
Armonk Kremlinologist, but they don’t have a lot of time left to get their act together.
ROFL!
https://www.platformonomics.com/2020/02/ibms-lost-decade/