Hi Folks Here is a quite realistic view of the spin off. LOTS and LOTS of issues have to be addressed. Mostly about dumping “legacy” NOTE one big issue is, IBM missed the public cloud market, and there is nothing they can do to recapture that. Do you think Amazon and Microsoft are going to let IBM crack that market, or will they lower their rates to gain share. Public cloud will/is a commodity market and prices will drop dramatically. IBM’s best bet is to partner with a public cloud market player, and use IBM’s installed Enterprise base as a catalyst to harvest their Intel space Keep the enterprise hosting, hybrid cloud, Redhat containerization, and legacy rewrite/presentation layer as your free gift. THATS the play, and Newco is nothing more than a commodity spinoff
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Agree and it’s pathetic they’re even trying to play. Customers laugh and simply move on.
IBM missed the public cloud opportunity. They tried private cloud but the products failed. Then they "invented" hybrid cloud but you can't create a good hybrid when the two things you are combining s—. For IBM to consider itself any kind of innovator in cloud is a sad joke.
OP is right. Maybe IBM could have been a factor in public cloud if they had invested the billions necessary instead of dispensing vital capital to shareholders in buybacks and dividends. Even then they would have had to replace the Softlayer executive team with people who understood that nobody cared about their sad devotion to bare metal.
But even if that had happened, would IBM have been able to sustain a business that runs on ever-decreasing margins while demanding continuous innovation? IBM Cloud vs. Azure makes OS/2 vs. Windows look like a close-run race!
The IBM Hybrid Cloud strategy is now quite convoluted since they are spinning off their GTS managed infrastructure business. Who is going to let IBM manage the hybrid environment if IBM doesn't control any of it (private cloud or public cloud)? It seems like all IBM can do now is provide Red Hat software and consulting.
Hybrid cloud is not public cloud - IBM is not trying to compete in public cloud.
Think about BigCos - some apps live in public cloud, some in private. Surely it's not too much a jump to think that customers could benefit by being able to shapeshift their app profile across multiple clouds?
That's what IBM is 'all in' on.
Sorry forgot to attach the story
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4380905-ibm-spin-off-is-just-not-enough