Thread regarding IBM layoffs

"we may not be able even to make it back into space, has the boeing craft returned yet"

it's the insourcing/outsourcing cheap labor gift that keeps on giving and giving
it's like watching the titanic after it has hit the iceberg
welcome to the clown show

@3tdu+1to77UUn

Very nice, I will add that to my email signature...

https://i.ibb.co/x3xg6mz/IBM-Toilet.jpg

"failing behind young, fierce, well funded and innovative competitors in AI"
id--t, what is AI again
you mean like Cruise, ask GM how that boondoggle is working out for them
if we lowered the standards for the young anymore we may not be able even to make it back into space, has the boeing craft returned yet

Two great brands from the past.

Digital Equipment Corporation - Bob Palmer ruined the company. Saw it firsthand and then sold to Compaq who later was sold to HP

Sun Micro Systems acquired by Oracle

KODAK, NOKIA, YAHOO, BLACKBERRY, MOTOROLA, XEROX, TIVO, NORTEL all failed to innovate with some now more brand than substance

This is a stupid comparison.

OP says "Anyone who went to grade school in the 1970s or 1980s probably saw something made by Bell and Howell..." This was certainly my experience (I'll add 1960s to the list of decades) and I believe it to be true generally (at least in North America.) We also saw a lot of SONY cassette tape recorders and video cameras back in the day. In both cases, this exposure very likely created lasting positive sentiment about the brands. That process was possibly subliminal. We tended to personally experience these products at special (and more interesting) times than normal classroom education. Also, again at least in my case, the products made by these brands just plain worked.

The point is that we experienced these brands as consumers. (Albeit possibly via the school system which would have had a more business to business relationship with these companies.) Without a doubt, the most experience that consumers would have had with IBM is the PC. But this experience was a lot less positive. Immediately upon creating this whole market, consumers discovered that IBM was by far the most expensive option. It has always been said of IBM "You can buy better but you can't pay more." The next discovery followed fairly quickly: third parties innovated much faster; you could get cooler new stuff faster by not buying IBM. By the time PCs had morphed into laptops, IBM had thrown in the towel. They admitted defeat in the PC operating system space and the sold the remnants of their PC business to Lenovo.

As a brand name, what are the letters IBM really worth down the road? The vast majority of the world have no particular interest in this name. IBM's customers are large businesses and some governments and those organizations tend not to have a lot of sentimental memory. They will use IBM products and services as long as they make more money than they cost. But they do not attach sentimental value to the name.

I never really understood those IBM ads for block chain (and other technical matters) on NFL broadcasts. Who is watching an NFL game and is suddenly struck by a desire to start using block chain? Trying to create positive brand sentiment in that setting is misplaced advertising. As the company fails in AI and cloud and block chain and ... the brand name will have much less residual value than the name B&H did because no one had a warm personal experience with it.

The article in the previous post is astounding.

IBM is developing a website to replace the Global Solutions Directory, which it recently ki-led off.

Does the replacement website exist yet? And if so, is it any good?

Basically if I were a customer, I'd already be lining up replacement solutions. This will definitely impact the bottom line. Oops.

Just to highlight the main theme of this thread. Here is where IBM management thinks System I is heading. Not a pretty picture when your largest ISV’s have told you they are moving away, and the bulk of ISV’s status is not even known by the IBM management team. Legacy within Power (OS/400 apps and Unix apps) are fading at warp speed. It’s all about LINUX and Enterprise SW modernization now. Everything else is being abandoned.
https://www.itjungle.com/2024/07/08/big-blue-working-on-replacement-for-global-solutions-directory-for-ibm-i/

True. The Bell and Howell name was licensed to an entity that uses it to sell cheap electronic goods to folks who remember the brand as reliable and strong (those born before 1970).

Also true that Systec bought the whole thing. But then they extracted all the goodies from it to line their pockets, leaving a bankrupt and subsequently reorg'd company that now is a player in new markets such as mechatronics service and propped up by legacy mail equipment services.

I worked for both companies. It's not a bad analogy, but it's still a facile one. Both show textbook signs of the fullness of evolution. Extinction is a long, slow slide. But everyone is afraid to bail on mainframes; and the USPS still delivers mails sorted by BH machines.

So, there's still life there. But the life is just that - still.

IBM is a legacy organization mainly composed and run by dinosaurs, failing behind young, fierce, well funded and innovative competitors in AI; it doesn’t have the edge and the competitive products, except possibly in quantum computing; IT industry is changing too fast for IBM to be relevant.
you reap what you sow