Vote - Yes or No: Arvind Krishna is the Best IBM CEO of All Times
14 replies (most recent on top)
Should be asking when was the last good IBM CEO when the name meant something
I truly don’t see IBM exiting the consulting business. Someone has to recommend to the legacy IBM install base whether to modernize (use LINUX), rip and replace (rewrite, buy new, or engage cloud) or just continue along with the legacy and just put a modern front end on. Each piece of IBM has been restructured to feed the other two pieces, thus it’s self fulfilling. AK and the CFO have repeated this strategy over and over again to Wall Street, so I doubt they will be looking to dump consulting. It drives the other two businesses. NOTE the mainframe legacy has 2 trillion worth of cobol investment in it, which will keep IBM busy for the next 20 years. What I do believe IBM will pursue is moving upscale to just a fortune 1000 engagement process. That means a lot of accounts will be abandoned to partners (amazon being one of them) as the consulting moves up scale towards large/fortune 1000 accounts. You certainly saw the first part of that with Octo. IBM did not buy them for their customer base, but rather for their consults who can move up the engagement size. This strategy is essentially leveraging IBM’s mainframe monopoly. It’s good in that it will be slow but steady growth, and it’s bad because you will never see explosive growth. That’s the nature of fortune 1000 customers. IBM is betting that mainframe modernization will grow faster then IBM abandons the scale out customer set. When you partner off the scale out product line, that is not a bad bet
"Right now, there is a thread on /r/IBM which espouses rumors about Consulting being spun off as well."
No surprise there, GBS (IBM Consulting) does not even make an effort to sell/recommend/implement IBM products... they always claim they are products neutral. Only makes sense to get rid of them. Some day, IBM will only be a 20-30 Billion (Revenue) company, the real question is how profitable they can become, becoming that much more smaller.
Arvind is about average. He will never be as based as Big Lou was. Consider the "partnership" announcements, how IBM is now cozying up to what traditionally would be considered as competitors, along with the rumors of continued spinoffs in the short and medium term. You already know that IBM Cloud is going to be dropped eventually, somehow. Right now, there is a thread on /r/IBM which espouses rumors about Consulting being spun off as well. This only leaves Hardware and Software. Unfortunately, this direction towards "right-sizing" IBM leads me to believe it seems that Arvind's long-term strategy is to gear IBM up to be acquired by one of the hyperscalers -- probably Amazon. IBM is too big to be acquired in its current form, but drop some of the less attractive lines of business, and now more serious conversations can be had. I don't think Lou ever would have just rolled over and let this happen.
Obviously a trolling provocative post... I wonder who wasting time to post such in your face posts on a layoffs site....
Maybe Ginny wanted a CEO to replace her to be so bad all will miss Ginny?
Doesn't matter who is at the wheel for ibm. Your all going off the cliff together. Hahahahahahhahahhahaha
Worst CEO
Ginni wins hands down with Sam coming in second
Complete lack of vision
Complete lack of innovation
Complete lack of industry trends and market forces
She almost bankrupted IBM, and it has taken AK 3 years to try and turn the ship It’s still a work in progress as there is yet more restructuring to do. Will IBM emerge with a viable business plan? Most likely yes, but it will be a much smaller/leaner IBM with a new business plan, as Ginni jettisoned far too many of the potential profit making / innovative parts of IBM in pursuit of the next shinny object. Those who live by financial engineering instead of innovation are doomed to repeat the same mistakes again and again. Thank god for clueless ineffective boards and golden parachutes
Best IBM CEO? No.
Last IBM CEO? Probably.
Ginni is likely one of the worst CEOs in corporate history, not just at IBM.
Overpaid, under performer, and a bully.
Jury is still out on Arvind.
Might be the worst ceo of all time
No, The Watson’s we’re the best CEOs, and Lou Gerstner painfully reinvented the company when it was at death’s door. As noted, this space isn’t for polling.
ibm is a toilet
Are you an IBM HR person? If yes, you should be fired for not realizing this is an IBM Layoff discuss thread. BTW, you must be the one who posted same vote about Ginni.