Thread regarding IBM layoffs

"But while Google, AWS, and Microsoft were investing, IBM was taking capital out of the company in the form of share buybacks and dividends. Instead of investing for the future, it focused on propping up the short term share price. "

This has been the IBM approach overall (not just in cloud) for the last 10-15 years, dating back to Palmisano's "Roadmaps". It's a failed strategy. "We're a mature company and have to return value to our shareholders." Ok, but first you have to generate that value which requires making investments and taking risks (and not just acquiring other companies to "buy revenue"). Focus need to shift from quarterly EPS and Dividend Aristocrat status to growing the top line.

I find this thread to be entertaining

Why so much hate? Because some of us remember when things were very different. IBM didn't enter markets, we MADE markets. We were the innovators that everyone else had to catch up to. Our leaders had the foresight to invest in the right areas. They treated employees so well that we gave incredible value back to the company. When college graduates were looking for an IT job, IBM was their first choice, a goal they hoped they could achieve. There was no hate then. But when I think back to those times, and then look at what 21st century executives have done to what we built.... "hate" is too mild a word.

And you are wondering why they are hiring EY Employees to run the cloud for them? Hey here is a great idea Sell off Intel and adopt Power for Your cloud HW strategy moving forward, because everyone wants to pay 2x the price for basic infrastructure. The SW world will beat a path to your door because everyone knows Intel is soooo yesterday and has no future. We are IBM, and what could go wrong? Oh just to make sure this idea succeeds, get rid of all of your Power Technical marketing (this stuff just sells itself) and don’t spend a penny on Helping ISV’s adopt Power LINUX, because we’ll sell the IP via Open Power. Oh Ginni you are a marketing genius Just ask Wile E Coyote You should ask for a bonus

@2qso: How did IBM drop the ball on cloud? Greed and stupidity.

When the cloud was young, it was obvious to Google and AWS - and a little late, but eventually, Microsoft too - that you had to be willing to plow massive amounts of capital into data center infrastructure. It was a classic case of "go big or go home". But while Google, AWS, and Microsoft were investing, IBM was taking capital out of the company in the form of share buybacks and dividends. Instead of investing for the future, it focused on propping up the short term share price.

It was also obvious customers wanted virtualization, not bare metal/dedicated servers. But instead of making that transition, the people running Softlayer doggedly stuck to their insistence that their bare metal was a better proposition than AWS' virtualization. Some of that might be excused by the fact that they didn't have the capital to do otherwise, but having met a number of people who were making the decisions, I don't think giving them more money to spend would have made a difference. They had a Theory about the cloud business, and Reality was not going to prove them wrong. Only once that generation of incoming executives had been removed could any progress take place - and by then Softlayer was years behind. (In many ways, Softlayer was the worst possible choice IBM could have made as its gateway to the Cloud business. Why it happened is a story for another time...).

What is truly pathetic is that in 2009 IBM published a white paper that said the future of computing was going to be cloud. Then in 2013, IBM bought a leading cloud-like computing platform provider in Softlayer. Someone understood, at least, where things were going.
However, in 2020, IBM finds itself hopelessly behind in public cloud marketshare and must now make up cloud revenue numbers to make it appear that it is still a cloud player. How did IBM drop the ball on the most disruptive computing shift since the invention of the PC? Executive leadership incompetence is the only answer.

The hate comes from anger. The anger comes from the constant fear of being axed.

Why so much hate?

I cannot name one account that uses IBM cloud so...

I think IBM looks bad when Cloud business is not successful. But they look worse when they lie about it. Lying is not the path to gaining customer trust.

IBM has made no secrets that it counts its cloud revenue differently vs the hyper-scalers. AK has said, “we want fortune 1000 users to modernize their legacy applications into Redhat, AI, and LINUX. KA CHING harvest the Legacy (OS’s, ISV’s, middleware, cognitive, and All of their associated services) into cloud. It’s IBM exploiting their monopoly just like Microsoft does Harvest that IP

The cloud revenue is up 30% yet the company revenue is down...

How is that going to work?

1) Take 30 year old legacy software and package it on K8s/OS.
2) Rename it Cloudpak For Whatever.
3) Convince existing customers to "upgrade" to this new version, running it on same on-prem servers as old one.
4) Cloud Revenue!!!!!!

Creative accounting 101 Take money from profitable accounts and put into the cloud revenue

Ok "Feisty IBM" we believe you 🙄 IBM's opinion of itself & reality are two different things.

Lol! This is laughable.

It's fake news. IBM appears to be significantly exaggerating its true cloud revenues and severely miscounting what is real cloud revenues. Counting legacy data center services as cloud is quite misleading (perhaps by design?). If you losing by a country mile, why not mislead to try and make things look better.