https://www.zdnet.com/article/business-leaders-are-losing-faith-in-it-according-to-this-ibm-study-heres-why/
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[Complete Seekingalpha article referenced in post @bnqv+1ufvUSZA quoted below].
IBM goes all in on hybrid cloud, GenAI, acquisitions to drive growth --
By: Brandon Evans, SA News Editor
Sep. 09, 2024 3:28 PM ET
IBM (NYSE:IBM) Chief Financial Officer Jim Kavanaugh said hybrid cloud and generative artificial intelligence both provide long-term growth opportunities for Big Blue.
"We are fundamentally a different company than where we were four or five years ago," Kavanaugh said during the Goldman Sachs Communacopia and Technology Conference on Monday. "Our focus is now on hybrid cloud and AI. We built a very attractive multiplier effect on those platforms."
"I think the market has been moving to what we are focused on," he said.
Mergers and acquisitions, as well as key divestitures, have played a formative role in IBM's transformation.
"Our business was stagnating on free cash flow," he said. "Now it has doubled in the past three years."
One of the most strategic of those acquisitions was Red Hat, which propelled IBM into the hybrid cloud sector. He said they typically set aside $4B to $5B per year in M&A. This year they will probably hit $9B. This is due to the acquisition of HashiCorp for $6.4B, which adds a suite of hybrid and multi-cloud lifecycle management products to aid clients with today's AI-driven application growth.
Kavanaugh said the HashiCorp acquisition should close before the end of the year.
The focus on hybrid cloud and GenAI has helped IBM reinvigorate its software and consulting businesses as well. IBM's mainframe business has also grown as 80% of its clients are growing workloads, Kavanaugh added.
He said IBM is close to announcing another strategic acquisition today after the market closes, and will continue to scour the market in 2025 for more possibilities.
Drop one old buzzword, add another. Rinse, repeat.
Where the CFO of IBM says they are heading
https://seekingalpha.com/news/4148109-ibm-goes-all-in-on-hybrid-cloud-genai-to-drive-growth
That's only because AskHR is designed for punch card junk mainframe input to sp-t out meaningless nonsense to end users.
GIGO !
There's the small issue of IBM's AI products being absolute garbage. The applications are pure trash. AskHR, anyone?