It seems that after debacles like OS/2 and Watson Health, IBM is no longer even pretending to make stuff "for the masses". IBM is definitely not a consumer products company in the same way that Apple, Google and Microsoft are, but can the company actually make money by catering to really small audiences?
I'm pretty sure that the answer to this is a no, but please, correct me if I'm wrong.
@3abp+1mt4W7bB - "It was an absolute clown show ... IBM is like that crazy person you see on the street corner, muttering gibberish and punching themself in the head." - A very apt description of the IBM work environment! 😏
Spent close to 13yrs ('03 - '15) with SWG and toward the end it was an absolute clown show. IBM SWG acquired some outstanding companies in my time there and quickly ruined the very things that made those companies and products great. Still have a few acquaintances who've managed to stay on for damn near 20yrs ... they must love the misery and turmoil. IBM is like that crazy person you see on the street corner, muttering gibberish and punching themself in the head.
Research and legacy offerings (mainframes, select software products and the services that go with them) will never be sold. They are legacies that provide IBM's bread and butter and keep the lights on. As for everything else...
What exactly has Research done recently? Quantum computing? A hyping joke. They're a disturbance to IBM business by pushing IBM's directions to fake big science. ..that doesn't work!
Sell Research and not only save billions but prevent damage from following pipedreams.
Every successful technology firm has an R&D division of some kind. If IBM Research disappeared today, then it would be recreated tomorrow. Somebody has to do the groundbreaking work.
Where IBM has historically had big problems is in taking the knowledge from research, converting it into saleable offerings, and successfully selling it to the public. They don't easily do it. In way too many instances, IBM's go-to-market strategy consists of responding to RFPs or RFQs from well-heeled buyers with a custom bid. Supercomputers, AI, blockchain, whatever...IBM will do it, IF you know exactly what you want, IF you have access to IBM marketing people, and IF you have a lot of cash.
Sounds good right? Except that companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, etc. are creating supercomputing, AI and cloud offerings that are easily accessible by anybody with a web browser and a credit card. I'm sure they'll happily respond to RFPs or RFQs from the right customers, but it's not like you need one to deal with those outfits. Try working with IBM if you're a little guy.
The problem is Research. Once the driving engine of products innovation like the System 360, has degenerated into a hyping division. Not only being pure overhead costs burden on IBM, but misleading and hyping moonshots the id--t executives are clueless to understand and see how ridiculous their research is. Watson came from Research. Blockchain, BlueGene supercomputer, failed fab technology, failed cloud innovations etc. Best to sell the research division and either start from 0 or just buy companies as IBM's been doing.
IBM loves B2B because the standards are so low. Arvind got on FoxNews with a SAP exec and promised to use AI to make SAP by "using AI". Ever use SAP? It is the Worst! And IBM has been pushing out of box SAP since before it spent a billion dollars on the Blue Harmony debacle.
So since IBM doesn't believe in customizing horrible SAP software, what could AI do? Stick a LLM on top and call it macaroni? Arvind thinks this is how you "fix" bad software, have a virtual assistant walk you through it. Dear Jeebus in heaven!
I wish AskHR had never won that Stevie Award - Arvind and Kathryn actually think that piece of cr-p is actually good when it is just a bandaid for an even worse solution, Workday. It does work but "good" is a relatively term. It shoots 10 unrelated links for every query because it doesn't understand a thing you say. With enough work you can find what you want, but it is not a "good" experience.
Enterprise software is the worst and IBM loves it because even some low paying grunts in Elbonia can install it and some LLM side by side - and the execs who will never once even see it in action will collect their big payday before it becomes clear what a failure it is.
OS/2 (and for that matter the PS/2) suffered from a lot of things, but one of the big ones was limited market direction from IBM executive management. At a time when Microsoft was targeting Windows 95/NT to pretty much everyone in the world who could run a PC compatible, IBM originally intended OS/2 to be an endpoint to the mainframe. This resulted in a chain of decisions on network and device driver support, SMP, print capabilities and DOS/Windows compatibility that relegated OS/2 to be a niche player in most places. Add to that the Microsoft/IBM divorce and the ill-fated PowerPC development, and that pretty much ended OS/2 at IBM.
OS/2 is a pretty good example of general mistakes IBM makes:
Mr. Thomas keeps promising to make market inroads by focusing on building products (with perhaps less management and meetings.) But that incredibly expensive management structure abides so it's not clear he can succeed. In addition, the HR structure remains the HR structure.
We tried it was called .com and run out of Torinto, it was an abysmal failure managed by fools.
IBM can be accused of a lot of things, but catering to "really small audiences" is not necessarily one of them. IBM's audience is business...it's in the name. They have tried on occasion to sell their offerings to the general public, but their comfort zone has always been large, medium and even small business. It's where they grew up, and indeed it's where they "make their money". They've got something for everyone (in business).
The IT industry used to be product-oriented, and for hardware it still is. However, services have become as big a business as packaged software products. IBM caters to both types of markets. As an example, at one time you had to purchase an expensive DB2 license if you wanted to run it. Nowadays, you can buy small, medium and large DB2 licenses if that's your thing, and you can even rent DB2 instances "in the cloud" for a monthly fee. It doesn't even need to be IBM's cloud. Anybody can do this...even individuals. This is a big transformation from how things used to be.
Yes, IBM has its failures. But that doesn't mean they aren't trying.
I’ll bet DuPont doesn’t agree
B2B only model is a road to nowhere pal