Let's hear it
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Ginni is the worst! Anytime!
@3pij+1fn0hNFz Baha if only, technically it would be raging alcoholic and western stooge Boris Yeltsin, who oversaw the largest drop in life expectancy for a developed nation since WWII. Maybe that's why there seems to be an abnormally high death rate among IBMers before retirement? Yeesh this got too dark.
Imagine if ExxonMobile started counting oil sales as Cloud Revenue because it's used to generate electricity that powers data centers. They'd be the #1 Cloud Computing company on the planet.
This is the opening line of the article I believe mainframe is staring you right in the face. IBM knows they are not competitive in edge computing or public cloud. Mainframe is the backbone IBM is leveraging
“Together Kyndryl and AWS will establish Cloud Center of Excellence to develop jo--t solutions including services for mission critical infrastructure, mainframe, network and edge computing services, and ERP”
Think IBM isn’t playing to the enterprise mainframe customers? You are not paying attention
I think I missed something there .. the article is about Kindryl and AWS .. what does that have to do with IBM and enterprise mainframe?
Think IBM isn’t playing to the enterprise mainframe customers? You are not paying attention
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kyndryl-aws-establish-strategic-partnership-140000115.html
Of course Ginni is better!
For AK, best case scenario is Gorbachev in the late 80s.
So the next CEO will be like Putin? Hmmm .. at least Putin has a strategy and knows how to grow his business.
Rometty, but purely on the basis that they let her into Augusta National as reward for her services. Sure there's lots of other proof in the pudding like the revenue decline, the snake oil R&D, the alienated toxic working culture, etc. But her affiliation with that mu---rers' row of post-industrial oligarchs is easily the most efficient way to answer this question.
For AK, best case scenario is Gorbachev in the late 80s.
IBM has always tried to expand the S/370 footprint. There was the 4300 series and Information Centers. We sold many to customers who wanted to dedicate applications away from the host. But these were always business systems that tried to take workload away from HP. That was always the goal, plant a seed and watch it grow. UNIX changed all of that.
Good post @2jhc
almost all consulting that doesn’t feed the mainframe narrative will be abandoned
Are you from Systems? You can't be from the Consulting side of the house. Over 80% of IBM Consulting has never seen or touched a mainframe (the numbers are probably >99% for BTS and >60% for HCS). It's just not what IBM Consulting does (outside of the AMS business). A big part of IBM's problem is people living in their own bubbles and thinking this is still 1989 and Z is still the center of the enterprise IT universe. It's not. The mainframe isn't dead, but it's a shrinking market. Every few years there's a new Z, IBM gets a couple of quarters of growth from it, then it shrinks by a multiple of that before the next one comes out. We're not winning new logos and existing customers are not expanding their Z footprint. Mainframe Modernization is just a short term strategy to provide cover until we can realize the actual "Hybrid Cloud and AI" strategy.
I don’t see how AK can have a worse reputation than Ginni. Let’s recap her achievements. She exited IBM with no strategy, no innovation on the horizon, 1/3 less revenue, 50% less free cash flow, 50% customer shrink, a misreading of the strategic direction of the marketplace with zero response, and a potential lawsuit for blatant age discrimination that is gaining not losing speed. HEY that’s worth a 20 million dollar bonus!!!
So if you were thrown into AK’s position in 2019, what would your response have been? Remember Intel had been abandoned, You paid GF to take Power manufacturing, PowerLINUX was a disaster across the marketplace, Cloud had passed you by, you had decimated your experienced sales and marketing force, your innovative side of IBM had been stripped bare, all of your moonshots were going no where, and your planned going forward strategy was still a twinkle in the boards eye. What options did AK have left? Mainframe it is because everything else had already failed. BUT mainframe was slowly shrinking, so how do you get your established mainframe customers to beat a path to your door? Redhat and it’s quasi unique distro was your only play (eg get your legacy Z code stack to modernize to LINUX via using Redhat). That makes some VERY VERY big assumptions, but the shelf was bare, so it was the only option. In hind sight, IBM could ill afford to lose the Redhat bidding game no matter what the cost, because it was the only go forward play. Did they pay too much (yes by approx a 1/3), but they had to clear the field because they were betting the company. Has AK outlined a strategy? Yes he has. (mainframe code stack modernization to LINUX with all the consulting you want thrown in. He also is outlining an AI SW strategy that acts in concert with the Redhat strategy to be a modern front end to the legacy mainframe database. That’s a he-l of a lot better going forward strategy that Ginni ever outlined. Will it work? Time will tell, but at least there is something to aim for vs the moonshot dejour. PLEASE note AK’s streamlining strategy isn’t done because he has to clear the deck of all of the leftover Ginni failures. Watson health is an example, but power/storage will have to be disposed of including all of the hosting and lab services that surround it. Legacy middleware for the most part will be abandoned for Redhat alternatives, and almost all consulting that doesn’t feed the mainframe narrative will be abandoned. (Its not because they don’t make money, but rather they don’t fit into the going forward strategy). AK is facing the steaming heap that Ginni left him, and so far he has outlined a niche strategy, if successful that will give IBM a potential path out of this mess. That’s more hope than Ginni ever gave you
So what
GR was a POS! She was best at discrimination!!! She denies it which makes her a LIAR!!! God help IBM.
Give Arvind a chance… he will prove himself the worst of the worst!
The fool who bought Red Hat for $34 billion certainly gets the Darwin award.
Ginni was arguably THE worst CEO of all time in the history of the Info Age. She is the WOAT.
CEO’s get paid to be visionary. They are suppose to see the next big thing and guide the company in that direction. NOTE they have to take what they inherit and position the company appropriately.
- Gerstner inherited a company facing disaster. Out of cash and out of a strategy. He decided to change the strategy and reduce costs to transform the company to position it to where he wanted to go.
- Sam decided to double down on Gerstners strategy (services) BUT the uniqueness of that play had passed Sam by. He got lured into a financial engineering scheme (10 bucks per share raised to 20) due to IBM’s legacy cash flow. It worked in the short term, but innovation investment was cut to the bone and IBM can trace their downfall to this lack of innovation investment.
- Ginni decided to double down again on Sam’s strategy (financial engineering) and it went castors up almost immediately. Cash flow, profit, and revenue all cratered. Ginni reacted to these problems by doing exactly what IBM didn’t need. (cut innovation even more, throwing Hail Mary passes, and ignoring what was obvious (a loud) to any person paying attention to the IT industry). You literally could have fired her 5 years earlier and left the CEO position open and had a positive effect for IBM. She was visionless and IBM is reaping Sam’s financial engineering and Ginni’s complete lack of ideas mode of operation.
- Finally AK is a work in progress. Remember each CEO has to build upon what they inherited. AK has dumped GTS. That is a good start. He has bought a pile of boutique consulting companies (essentially deciding consulting is IBM’s future) and he has invested a pile of free cash flow into Mainframe and LINUX. CEO’s get 3 years to prove their worth and IBM usually gives them 5-7 years. AK is only 2 years in, and still has a lot of clean up to do. What kind of clean up remains? Factoring off IGF portfolio, prioritizing Z investment over storage and Power, building up AI/Consulting/SW modernization under LINUX, partnering with industries that have passed IBM by, and dumping redundant legacy operations. Will it work? Time will tell
The apple never falls far from the tree
Sam thinking to Ginni, Ginni's thinking to Arvind Pass time to go outside of IBM and get a CEO who knows how to run a company
They both suck ba--s ... but GR was also maliciously incompetent.
Ginni was terrible... Calling some BUs empty calories when in fact she was making all the wrong moves and being an empty promise CEO with constant reorg, layoffs, offshoring, and moonshot changes. But Ginni was also bu-t f***ed by Sam without lubricant and got infected by his no cloud strategy, stock buybacks, and empty dividend promise, and constant cost cutting. Stock buybacks are meant for only a short term strategy and she did it for how long? 8 years? Arvind really don't have much to play what's left of it.
"Who is John Galt?" - Jim Whitehurst
No one can beat Ginni in terms of underperformance
Ginni the ghoul for sure
She is worse
Well considering Ginni plundered the company for insane personal compensation, full on tanked the stock price, instituted a horrible and political culture, presided over many incompetent and costly strategic decisions (CAMSS, Industry Platforms, etc etc etc)….it’ll take some effort on Arvinds part to be that bad.
They're both incompetent
None of them. They both suck!