Does anyone know what AK has done well before becoming the CEO? He was running Research and Could. And before the STG manufacturing as the GM.
Looks to me he has achieved nothing. Only failures and has only made cuts but built nothing. Of course other than his biggest $34B flop buying RedHat.
Classic IBM. Kick failing execs up? Of course RedHat is the biggest flop so he's the CEO?
Red Hat came saddled with debt and Timothy Prickett Morgan is just a decades-long IBM PR operative
And yet IBM has made it pay off and implement a new strategy
https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/10/24/ibms-red-hat-acquisition-will-pay-for-itself-by-early-next-year/
Oracle was ready to acquire Red Hat back then. It would have been a bigger disaster to Red Hat had Oracle acquired them. Look what happened to Sun Microsystems, a once great company. I am not saying IBM made a good move, but I am guessing it was a defensive move by IBM to not let Oracle control the Linux market. Did IBM overpay for Red Hat. Certainly, if you look at ROI and Payback, they definitely overpaid.
Well he laid of people, that is an accomplishment. Layoff in US hire in India and Brazil, save money!!
No, no one really knows how any purchase will turn out and I'm not saying any IBM executives know how things might turn out (or not) - same as anything else in life. IBM first dipped their toe (dabbled) in the software business in the mid 1990s when they paid 2 Billion bucks for Lotus Development Corp. which was a huge sum in those days. They learned from that experience and moved on to buy other good purchases like Rational etc. The margins were better for software and services compared to only hardware and I believe that both areas still profitable. It allowed them to fund the Open Source projects like Red Hat and Apache too. But the Red Hat cost was a huge number, and it was a make or break IBM deal. IBM mgmt believes in secrecy so the numbers never come out if they recovered that money they spent or not. They didn't break it down for Lotus or Rational software purchases either. But you're right about wasting companies - but Lotus Notes / Domino was in use all over IBM (it still is if you can dig around in the right places and you'll find a few Domino servers still running in 2024) . IBM was the biggest customers of their own product. LOL ! Notes was like a dr-g and they couldn't wean themselves off it. Those Lotus (IRIS) guys knew what they were doing, when they sold the company to IBM, because they designed and built an exceptional product, that is still running today. HCL is now selling it.
IBM leadership has always been clueless but there were a few smart executives in the past who knew what they were getting into. You can't say the same for Palmisano, Rometty or Alvind though. Nothing but a bunch of egotistical and greedy fools who have run the company into the ground. It's destined for the scrap heap of history and not for another century of greatness. There will not be a phoenix rising from the ashes either.
Just my rambling 0.02c !
It sounds like you think buying Red Hat was a fantastic move any executive would love to have credit for?
How was a $34B pay good in terms of the ROI so far especially as a huge debt costs paying interest on the equivalent of $34B?!
Looks like the biggest flop in the history of corporate M&A . IBM buys companies then waste them.
How was buying the Weather Company ended...? Just an example...
The crazy IBM's debt looks to me a bankruptcy is close as the interest on such debt could ki-l IBM's cash flow. Next step could be eliminating the dividends just like Intel was forced to do. Intel is like the IBM to be in the near future?
Alvind was an executive bulls**t artist prior to becoming CEO. He was known for wasting his time and energy on pointless trivial pursuits and wasting money on worthless research projects in various divisions of IBM that he was assigned to. Blame the losers at the top like Palmisano and Rometty for this mess - they gave the crown to this charlatan, since they assumed India was the bright jewel in their crown. It isn't, at last not any more. Alvind the Indian was in the Software group but contributed nothing of value to anything that was going on, except to say he was financing projects as the leading executive of the group. Perhaps you can go and search for any software patents that has his name on it as someone who worked on any important commercial software project. I'll bet that someone else did the background research on Red Hat to evaluate it's potential and Alvind simply took the credit and then became CEO. Happens all the time. IBM was simply bankrolling Red Hat during the good times till they decided to buy it - every IBM executive around would love to claim credit for making that decision. Alvind talks a good game to get onto the New York Bank board but is he capable of doing anything of value there ? Not in this writer's humble opinion, except it makes him look good to show up at photo opportunities. You can be a dullard but still be in the right place at the right time and get your photo in the press to make yourself look important and wise. If you have enough money (and influence) you can buy off people, corporations, and even their silence when you do wrong. If Trump can do it, why not Alvind with the enormous finances from IBM ? Why does IBM buy the silence of the plaintiffs, when they lose age discrimination lawsuits ? Why aren't the NDA's made public ? It's a corrupt corporation and as we know - all bad things come to an end, just like all good things.
@2eut but what is Alvind known for doing in the past before becoming the CEO and before pushing to waste $34B to buy RedHat? Or is it the huge RedHat blunder why he's made the CEO to see the "strategy" implanted around the RedHat?
Why would the BOD listen to someone who has done nothing in the past and trust his recommendations to buy RedHat especially as it looks like the IBM's BOD is made of very old outdated execs?
AK or Alvind as he likes to be called is a Jerk (Numero Uno type) CEO with no class. It seems that the IBM boards is great at picking jackasses like this when you consider Rometty and Palmisano as well. All bluster and layoffs to earn themselves bigger bonuses.
Most of Alvind's people are just like that and that's why he and they will eventually leave under a cloud....just a matter of time, after the stock hits $250 (if it does....).
It's a wonder that HBS (Harvard Business School) doesn't do a series called "Mo--ns At The Top" starting with the clueless IBM leadership followed by many other tech companies run by ego-maniacs.