I'm not denying these claims, but I feel I don't understand them. What happened?
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@5nwt In this day and age of outsourcing and cloud computing, many businesses have chosen to farm out functions like payroll to outside services. I'm not even sure that IBM does their own payroll anymore (as a supplemental all those years ago, I seem to recall my biweekly paper checks coming in ADP envelopes).
Yes, there will always be a need for mainframes. But it is and will continue to be a niche purchase. If you're a business, the mainframe will be a last-resort option rather than the default. First choice will be a bank of small servers, either on-site or in the cloud. Second choice might be an outside service. Maybe switch the first and second choices around if that's your preference. Third choice will be to buy your own mainframe, and spend the resources to develop and maintain that application.
Most businesses have decided the mainframe will run their core systems
Only if by most businesses you mean banks, insurance companies, and government agencies that have been running those systems for 40+ years. When was the last time Z picked up a new logo?
4bbs You are forgetting the old joke What’s the definition of a legacy system Answer = one that works. System Z’s work day in and day out without getting hacked or breaking Can’t say that about Intel and its LINUX SW Most businesses have decided the mainframe will run their core systems (legacy) and they will experiment around the edges where the legacy can be improved (eg presentation layer etc etc)
Offering this as Linux-only seems like a really d-mb idea .. once your software is running on Linux, it is just a recompile away from migrating completely and forever off of IBM hardware in the future.
"When you combine this with the system's cybersecurity posture, IBM is well positioned for market traction."
Did an actual human being write that? Or is this IBM showing off some new shiny blatherbot's output drivel?
We're all doomed.
The seeming loss of Power is bad enough...but what about the potential loss of Z?
Z has a solid install base for now...but why should ISVs and customers work with it for future applications rather than working with Intel servers or an Intel-based cloud?
When I see IBM stuff on the web or on published media, I get the sense that IBM is playing "me too". "We can run Linux!" "Look at our Telum processor and see how big it is!" Stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, I like the cool mainframe hardware too...but I see it becoming VERY, VERY niche. In other words, you don't buy IBM unless you need a mainframe, and you don't buy a mainframe unless you really, really, REALLY need one. For most applications, in most market segments, other platforms like Intel are good enough.
That's a problem.
When Ginni exited Intel, she doomed the national markets. Power could never back fill Intel given IBM’s ignoring the ISV’s. The ISV’s proved that to be correct by doubling down on Intel Linux code and ignoring the Power ISV code stack. Don’t believe me, just look at the revenue stream Power used to be 8-10 billion a year. Now it struggles to break 2.5 and that includes the Storage components. It takes true management incompetence to lose 75% of your revenue. Does Power have a future? Of course, BUT as a much smaller niche brand. Mostly as a performance platform that Intel can’t match (the very high end), and as a fix and replace box, that customers view like replacing a TV. Why try to port when you can just upgrade to a smaller box (yep a going out of business strategy if you are not gaining new customers). Everything else has faded away due to being ignored. (lack of innovation) This includes cloud as IBM was too little on the offerings side, plus being way way way too late.
You can see where IBM is heading with this announcement Focus on enterprise (system z) and concede everything else to Intel. This announcement should have been a power announcement but LOP is essentially dead except for Niche marketplaces (ISV dependent) IBM made a critical mistake when they exited Intel, but that’s now water over the dam and the hyperscalers have captured that market at IBM’s expense. Play this out IBM scaleout (national marketplace) is done except for Niche markets (SAP and Oracle) Yep IBM is going to shrink and there is nothing they can do to fight it. HPE also showed you the next play in the game and that is IBM has to partner up with a networking company if they are to play with the hyperscalers. The network is far more important than folks realize
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-linuxone-4-express-offer-050100053.html
The best thing that IBM could do for itself would be to sponsor an entrepreneurial environment where new inventions could be quickly developed into saleable products and services. Revenue would come in and reduce the desperate need for cash flow.
Sounds simple, right? The task is daunting enough for even the simplest of environments. IBM has to contend with a lethargic and complicated management structure with a lot of hands being held out for their cut, and a lot of egos to be soothed.
You have a good idea? Try passing it by your first, second, and third line managers. Then have your ideas reviewed by various "review boards" consisting of project managers, architects, STSMs and DEs. Then pass it by various letter-band executives, all of whom have to justify their own projects, their own organizational staffs, and their own budgets. What makes your good idea any better than something in their organization?
Did IBM legal review your idea? Did the financial analysts review your idea for sanity? Should your great idea even get passed on to hardware manufacturing, software development or maybe one of the services groups? How much revenue will your great idea bring in? Is it even worth bothering to work with your great idea?
It's a mess.
You know, people are getting real tired of the workers on the front lines taking the brunt of the blame for poor sales numbers. Some day, accountability needs to start at the top for poor decision making. Look, IBM has not been successful penetrating whitespace "National" accounts for many years. What makes our executives think we can just reallocate a huge portion of the sales and technical staff from markets where you can actually win business and place them on these National accounts. People resources assigned to sell the customers is only part of the equation. You need to have products and pricing that appeals to these accounts. Past history showed that we did not have products and pricing that appeal to this customer base. Where is the comprehensive business planning that our execs supposedly should be skilled in?
RT is working the b0ng hard Should have something cooked up soon
What great ideas has IBM come up with lately?
IBM execs suffer from this “disease” described by the late Steve Jobs as follows:
“ There's a disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work."
"One of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left John Sculley got a very serious disease. And that disease, I’ve seen other people get it, too, it’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90 percent of the work, and that if you just tell all these other people “here’s this great idea” then of course they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is that there’s a just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in-between a great idea and a great product, and as you evolve that great idea it changes and grows it never comes out like it starts because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it. And you also find there’s tremendous trade-offs that you have to make. There are there are just certain things you can’t make electrons do, there are certain things you can’t make plastic do or glass do or factories do or robots do. And as you get into all these things, designing a product is keeping 5,000 things in your brain, these concepts, and fitting them all together and kind of continuing to push to fit them together in new and different ways to get what you want and every day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently. ”
We used to only staff around 10 people or so several years ago in the US for software sales. For some reason RT thought we needed hundreds and forced markets to move selected people to the National Market. I would say there was a very high probability that he overstaffed for the amount of revenue that would could in. It is very sad that now some in the National Market are being let go. He most likely knew the risk on this decision and has little empathy for the lives this is impacting. RT also ran software for a period and surely he knew it would be a struggle in whitespace accounts selling overly complex and pricey software. Many whitespace accounts are Microsoft or OpenSource and/or use SaaS solutions.
I'm not and will never be a salesman (former system administrator), but if I ran IBM sales I would have assigned a maximum of 10 people nationwide to the pursuit of new business. IBM in its current state is a legacy company, with legacy products that are sold to legacy customers. They've tried to expand to new markets, but those attempts have largely resulted in IBM retreating back to its comfort zone...selling mainframes and enterprise software to well-heeled enterprise clients. If they couldn't make it in networking, printers, displays, keyboards, personal computers, custom chips, storage devices, midrange systems and now SERVICES, then why are they chasing new business? For software? What are the salespeople expected to sell? People on this forum speak often of impossible quotas, but now I'm curious to see what the quotas are. What could IBM management possibly be expecting the salesforce to sell in this day and age to new accounts? Some obscure software product that nobody has ever heard of? Cloud paks? Watsonx? Who knows?
Nope...10 people MAXIMUM, for the entire United States, dedicated to new business. Maybe a few more in other countries. Put them all on base salary for now plus performance bonus...no insane "commission-only" nonsense...not until IBM has new stuff to sell. Insane, you say? I told you I'd never be a salesman.
RT wanted to go all in on the whitespace accounts and ensured staff were taken away from the other markets and placed in the National Accounts. I was chatting with an entreprenuer/business owner last light about this and he said IBM should have placed fewer people in the National Market to test the market first before staffing up so much. See if the investment and people resources justifies the returns you are getting on sales before adding a ton more staff.
1ian You have pretty much summed it up. We used to call the white space “new accounts” It’s where careers went to die, and where new reps went to cut their teeth. 90% of white space accounts were dead from the start. (customer was happy running old equipment, ISV didn’t support newer IBM equipment, customer finally found a competitor to migrate to, IBM had abandoned the customer via exiting that market, etc etc). They had zero potential, but you as the rep still carried quota for them. Of the 10% of accounts that had potential, they boiled down to modernization/financial plays (IBM’s newer equipment paid off vs the carrying cost of the older equipment. This was the sweet spot for system I and upgrades). Competitive take out (this was the sweet spot for IBM Unix vs everyone else. One power core could replace several competitive cores). New ISV code did far more vs the old ISV code (this play was depended on ISV’s and When IBM stopped supporting ISV’s, they migrated to suppliers who did support them (mostly Intel). Finally new HW (innovation) and SW (features) capabilities. (this boiled down to offering better HW innovation vs Intel, and better SW features (mostly being offered on Intel LINUX) NET NET white space aged out and shrank away. IBM didn’t have a value proposition to refill the white space thus the marketplace migrated to competitors offering better solutions (value for money) IBM managers never understood that, and their 1990’s (we are the only game in town) thinking continues to cloud their judgement on the potential of the white space. As such the white space potential will continue to shrink, as will the IBM head count that supports it.
To understand IBM's situation, it helps to take the (potential) customer's point of view. IBM was once an indispensable vendor in the business computing world. If you were in IBM's target market (enterprise business), you owned IBM hardware and/or software because they were the only available tools for the job. Even if you didn't run a pure IBM shop, you were sure to run at least one IBM product...z/OS, DB2, CICS, a mainframe, something like that.
IBM is no longer that indispensable company. Even for the biggest of businesses, you don't need to buy IBM if you don't want to. Hardware, software, services...doesn't matter. There are alternatives, some better and some worse, to every IBM offering.
IBM now has to compete. Much of its product line is not competitive, and it has no chance of being competitive at any price that wouldn't immediately sink the company. Try selling that to customers. Now you understand IBM's problem.
Looks like @eru’s message struck an executive nerve. Good!
How true this is.
2/3 of all accounts in every squad aren’t buying.
Most of these accounts have zero interest in IBM software.
So what happens leadership blames the field for not performing and doing their job.
They take the highest paid team members based on age and years in the industry and RIFF T them and call it performance.
BS!!!
National Market was RTs baby. Allocated tons of IBM staff to the market. Mistakes: over hiring, unrealistic quotas based on whitespace accounts, IBM product readiness for whitespace accounts. Cloud Paks were too complicated and costly for whitespace customers. Timing of IBM software SaaS offerings on AWS and Azure did not happen quickly enough. IBM software products are too heavyweight. Inflexibility in pricing,
What truth this is above!
Thank you for for the thorough message.
To bad there isn’t a way for a group of employees to go on to CNBC and tell the world and analysts what’s truly going on compared to the cr-p leadership tells.
Blaze another bowl Rob
Oh hi, Rob. I don’t know about the flack but I do know a lot of people in National Market and not a single one of them has any respect for you other than a maybe a few bootlickers, and they don’t really mean it. The whole “you did great last quarter. Now this quarter make sure you work even harder with less coworkers while we take away more employee incentives and raise your quotas so you can make me some more money” speech you give has gotten stale and doesn’t resonate well with others. THIS employee plans on not being an IBM employee by year’s end, and if you’re a manager or mid-level exec in the National Market you should be highly concerned about attrition because we all discuss how things are going, and many of us are actively looking to leave. So I guess it’s “mission accomplished” for Rob, AK the anti-white racist CEO, and the other execs. Good people don’t want to work for this failing company. It was once an honor to work for IBM. Now it’s a joke.