Thread regarding IBM layoffs

I would shocked if IBM made a play for “Pure” Pure doesn’t feed the Cloud/AI/Redhat/Enterprise narrative. Look for IBM to pursue the exit of the HW business. They will accelerate their reselling of their intellectual property as it’s a way to recover sunk investment from years ago. If IBM is going to pursue / invest in anything, it will be on Proprietary SW as the margins are thru the roof and it feeds the cloud/Ai/enterprise/Redhat narrative. If you own a proprietary SW stack you own the marketplace. HW is just a commodity

IBM will buy Pure Storage, this is my prediction.

@3hqm:

IBM Storage is no longer #2. It has been surpassed by others. From a revenue/market-share perspective, it is like #4 or #5 now. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS45155319 (Scroll down to the table).

Could it be a significant standalone business? May be. But one you wouldn't want to take out to a party on Wall Street. https://blocksandfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BM-stirage-revs-Q3-2019.jpg

It's a bit weird to describe Storage as "niche", it's #2 in the segment and pretty much the biggest counterweight to the Dell/EMC leviathan. If you took it out of IBM (and the IBM "tax") and in particular decoupled it from Power (which really is niche) and jettisoned the dying/legacy products (Protect) it could be a significant standalone business.

Margins are unbelievably low for a tech/professional services company. So low it’s an embarrassment to see. This is a sign of TOO MUCH MANAGEMENT.

An article In Barrons today announced that Zoom is now worth more than IBM as far as market value. I'm sure their employees are also a lot happier than IBMers. Oh how the mighty have fallen!

IBM has historically always had a larger 4th q vs any of the other quarters If that continues to hold, your 67 B is way off

Another joke... None of these analysts have a clue about IBM, because IBM is KING in hiding the real numbers... Legacy is still what makes IBM money, the Cloud numbers are all fake and we all know that IBM is dead last in the Cloud. Growth returning in 2021? Compared to what? A dismal 2020... IBM revenue was 77 B in 2019, as of the end of H2 2020 it is barely at 35 B... so full year 2020 revenue will at best come to 67 B. If IBM can't make more than 67 B in 2021, then shame on it.

The inside ownership doesn’t surprise me as institutions own a pile of IBM. The stability of the dividend certainly pushes this. The decline in margin is an eye opener from this point of view IBM bought Redhat (primarily a SW company) and they diluted their margins by 10% Folks that means IBM mints money on their legacy. IBM certainly will not fool with that minting of money on the SW side of the house, but the margins certainly indicate that IBM has to do something on the HW/Services side of the house to keep margins where IBM has historically run.

The inside ownership chart is interesting.
Also the decline in margin of Cognitive and Cloud Software by 10% ever since they bought Red Hat.
Whole article seems to be based on idea that the turnaround is complete and Revenue will start growing next year. Have heard that story for about 10 years now.