Systems or some portion thereof, is next.
https://insidehpc.com/2020/10/where-have-you-gone-ibm/
4 replies (most recent on top)
Coral was a technically challenging fun project. We had an amazing relationship with nvidia and Mellanox. Then Hpc was k–led , Bare metal and KVM k–led, the leader of power leader was pushed out and replaced by a business person who launched a big layoff. The power lead is now at amd along with other technical power leads with more to follow or retire. Our relationship with nvidia was destroyed by execs. Power10 is struggling with a very limited roadmap with no AI or Cloud support, simply support enterprise until they move to cloud. For the good of the power team please sell them off or put them out of their misery.
Or is IBM perhaps keeping Systems to not be a totally software company?
If they get rid of the Machines we will just be International Business.
I worked on CORAL and it was a cool project ... though in the end I got dinged because while an important contributor to the chaos I didn't do enough (% wise) for my dept. lesson learned. But my rant.
That said, paraphrasing Arvind "We're not abandoning HPC - it's just that we don't have anything to offer that they care about". Um, yeah, that's abandoning it if you're not pursuing it.
HPC is expensive as article notes and low margin CORAL didn't make much money. It did advance technologies - but that's not accountable per-se on the books.
Now aside from HPC and to the OP Title, "Systems, or some portion thereof, is next"
I'm in systems and I would agree. I do not have any specific knowledge of anything brewing, but my past 5-7 or so I've seen Ginni (and now Arvind) mercilessly trim anything not on the very-current-now hit list. Nothing spared, not even grand new ambitions (Watson Health lasted, what, 2 years?)
So apriori seeing a lot being sold to Lenovo, I just can't see them keeping a lot of systems for long.
While we like to say we "power IBM" internally, does that really matter? To bean counters they still buy Lenovo laptops (as just one example). So why not other systems?
Or is IBM perhaps keeping Systems to not be a totally software company?
That's my guess, but how long will it last?
And there's numerous lower margin things in Systems - shed them and keep the high margin ones like Z? And sell, what, GPFS or open soure it? (how well is Power working in that regard? Kinda OK but ...)
So to me - very interested in System thoughts past HPC
Followers are who jump way too late on the bandwagon of latest trends.
When people think cloud they do not think IBM, not even close. Another bad "all in" bet.