7 ms·

I swear I have no idea what IBM does. Anyone know?

by pbreit 11y ago

mesozoic 11y ago
Consulting mostly I think
jonknee 11y ago
Win at Jeopardy, star in some commercials, contribute little revenue to IBM's business.
ngoede 11y ago
Buy other companies.
Afforess 11y ago
IBM is a financial services company that dabbles in tech.
- vegabook 11y ago
  you're funny. Probably half of the tech you use every day has an IBM enabling technology behind it, thankfully paid for, directly or indirectly, by this "financial services" company. let's not forget that x86 itself could have been a Motorola 68000 if this company had not decided in Intel's favour. That's the extent to which this company defined the computer era. The notebook you're using right now will boot DOS, commissioned by IBM. And I'm not even starting on the fact that almost all programming language roots go back to languages for the IBM 360 mainframes. I'll gloss over the extent to which the architecture of your modern computer is essentially a scaled down version of what was invented by IBM in its mainframe business. Disk? Check. Processor cache? Check. Asynchronous bus? Check. GPU (IBM 8514) check. It's not unfair to say that this company invented modern computing's engineering, and even if it has (very sadly) lost its way, one can hope that some of the culture of well-financed innovation remains, and this Watson business might be one of those.
  - sithadmin 11y ago
    Found the IBM employee
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - vegabook 11y ago
      I have never worked for IBM.
  - Afforess 11y ago
    I'm an IBM employee, was self-deprecating humor, actually. ;)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - johnward 11y ago
      IBM has always been driven by finances
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    No disagreement here - but it is all in the past now. With the possible exception of Watson/supercomputing, IBM is a shadow of its old self.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - vegabook 11y ago
      It seems to be a pattern that even great companies don't last much longer than the average human lifespan. Even if IBM is a 130 year-old company, its glory days lasted somewhere between 40 and 80 years.
      - 11y ago
deelowe 11y ago
They are an engineering services firm providing everything from consultation to turn key solutions to PAAS and IAAS products. Most of their work is enterprise and governmental and covered by NDAs and contracts that aren't/can't be widely publicized.
mpdehaan2 11y ago
Good question :) IBM used to make pretty good laptops but sold the laptop part off (Lenovo) IBM used to have a pretty decent server line or lines, though they sold a good part of the Intel stuff off (now Lenovo for the server line, but had sold off many other parts earlier, such as storage, and started using more vendors) There were things Software Group did like Websphere, which I imagine still does good money, but why you'd actively want to seek it out over free alternatives I have no idea. They also have DB2 in database land. Software Group used to be cooler and have better resources than hardware groups, or so we thought. I have no idea how well they are doing. They also got rid of microelectronics and who knows what else. In general, innovative parts of IBM get sold off, and they keep the services parts? Feels that way. Their margins on services and people are not good, so they also have the reputation of restructuring/laying-off like crazy and seemingly at random, with lots of pressure on stock price. I was there in 2001-ish when they scrapped pensions, though the thought of pensions actually existing is a novel concept today. It used to be a place where people thought they could work forever, and that is decidely no longer the case anywhere, it shows how the views of what IBM was changed rapidly over time. They also increasingly pushed for a contractor-heavy work force for more ability to make cuts and reduce benefits.
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  > when they scrapped pensions IBM doesn't offer any kind of pension as a benefit? What does everyone do? Buy privately? I think that's even illegal in some countries like the UK.
  - mpdehaan2 11y ago
    That may be US specific. i.e. Retirement pensions basically dont' exist in the US anymore, at least not in the software industry. Basically most companies in the US offer some form of 401(k) with a selected amount of supported funds to choose to invest in, often with some degree of employer matching. Sometimes there are vesting requirements on employer matching. Startups are sometimes likely to not offer any matching.
    - 11y ago
chrisseaton 11y ago
Did you know one thing IBM are doing is working on a JIT for Ruby? They're talking about it at JavaOne today.
rdtsc 11y ago
One thing they do is not sell to consumers anymore. For better for for worse, they got rid of that. The margins were too thing and it was harder to compete with Apple, Dell and other overseas makes of consumer harder. They sell services, main frames, cloud, software used by enterprise (storage, project management, ...) provide consultants, and even have a bank! that companies can get financing from (when they buy all that expensive other stuff from it).
- vram22 11y ago
  They also invented many fundamental computer hardware and software technologies. (I was a bit surprised when I first read that several years ago.) From the Wikipedia article about IBM: IBM has 12 research laboratories worldwide, bundled into IBM Research. As of 2013 the company held the record for most patents generated by a business for 22 consecutive years.[16] Its employees have garnered five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.[17] Notable company inventions include the automated teller machine (ATM), the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, the magnetic stripe card, the relational database, the Universal Product Code (UPC), the financial swap, the Fortran programming language, SABRE airline reservation system, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), copper wiring in semiconductors, the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) semiconductor manufacturing process, and Watson artificial intelligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM
slater 11y ago
Lotus Notes! Hey what's with the downvotes :(
nosnos 11y ago
Shitty marketing platforms.
sgt101 11y ago
IBM tries to sell things. It is not always clear what those things are, what they are for or what they will cost, but the main function of IBM is selling. Things.

I swear I have no idea what IBM does. Anyone know?

by pbreit 11y ago

I swear I have no idea what IBM does. Anyone know?

mesozoic 11y ago

Consulting mostly I think

jonknee 11y ago

Win at Jeopardy, star in some commercials, contribute little revenue to IBM's business.

ngoede 11y ago

Buy other companies.

Afforess 11y ago

IBM is a financial services company that dabbles in tech.

vegabook 11y ago
you're funny. Probably half of the tech you use every day has an IBM enabling technology behind it, thankfully paid for, directly or indirectly, by this "financial services" company. let's not forget that x86 itself could have been a Motorola 68000 if this company had not decided in Intel's favour. That's the extent to which this company defined the computer era. The notebook you're using right now will boot DOS, commissioned by IBM. And I'm not even starting on the fact that almost all programming language roots go back to languages for the IBM 360 mainframes. I'll gloss over the extent to which the architecture of your modern computer is essentially a scaled down version of what was invented by IBM in its mainframe business. Disk? Check. Processor cache? Check. Asynchronous bus? Check. GPU (IBM 8514) check. It's not unfair to say that this company invented modern computing's engineering, and even if it has (very sadly) lost its way, one can hope that some of the culture of well-financed innovation remains, and this Watson business might be one of those.
- sithadmin 11y ago
  Found the IBM employee
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - vegabook 11y ago
    I have never worked for IBM.
- Afforess 11y ago
  I'm an IBM employee, was self-deprecating humor, actually. ;)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnward 11y ago
    IBM has always been driven by finances
- jazzyk 11y ago
  No disagreement here - but it is all in the past now. With the possible exception of Watson/supercomputing, IBM is a shadow of its old self.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - vegabook 11y ago
    It seems to be a pattern that even great companies don't last much longer than the average human lifespan. Even if IBM is a 130 year-old company, its glory days lasted somewhere between 40 and 80 years.
    - 11y ago

deelowe 11y ago

They are an engineering services firm providing everything from consultation to turn key solutions to PAAS and IAAS products. Most of their work is enterprise and governmental and covered by NDAs and contracts that aren't/can't be widely publicized.

mpdehaan2 11y ago

Good question :) IBM used to make pretty good laptops but sold the laptop part off (Lenovo) IBM used to have a pretty decent server line or lines, though they sold a good part of the Intel stuff off (now Lenovo for the server line, but had sold off many other parts earlier, such as storage, and started using more vendors) There were things Software Group did like Websphere, which I imagine still does good money, but why you'd actively want to seek it out over free alternatives I have no idea. They also have DB2 in database land. Software Group used to be cooler and have better resources than hardware groups, or so we thought. I have no idea how well they are doing. They also got rid of microelectronics and who knows what else. In general, innovative parts of IBM get sold off, and they keep the services parts? Feels that way. Their margins on services and people are not good, so they also have the reputation of restructuring/laying-off like crazy and seemingly at random, with lots of pressure on stock price. I was there in 2001-ish when they scrapped pensions, though the thought of pensions actually existing is a novel concept today. It used to be a place where people thought they could work forever, and that is decidely no longer the case anywhere, it shows how the views of what IBM was changed rapidly over time. They also increasingly pushed for a contractor-heavy work force for more ability to make cuts and reduce benefits.

chrisseaton 11y ago
> when they scrapped pensions IBM doesn't offer any kind of pension as a benefit? What does everyone do? Buy privately? I think that's even illegal in some countries like the UK.
- mpdehaan2 11y ago
  That may be US specific. i.e. Retirement pensions basically dont' exist in the US anymore, at least not in the software industry. Basically most companies in the US offer some form of 401(k) with a selected amount of supported funds to choose to invest in, often with some degree of employer matching. Sometimes there are vesting requirements on employer matching. Startups are sometimes likely to not offer any matching.
  - 11y ago

chrisseaton 11y ago

Did you know one thing IBM are doing is working on a JIT for Ruby? They're talking about it at JavaOne today.

rdtsc 11y ago

One thing they do is not sell to consumers anymore. For better for for worse, they got rid of that. The margins were too thing and it was harder to compete with Apple, Dell and other overseas makes of consumer harder. They sell services, main frames, cloud, software used by enterprise (storage, project management, ...) provide consultants, and even have a bank! that companies can get financing from (when they buy all that expensive other stuff from it).

vram22 11y ago
They also invented many fundamental computer hardware and software technologies. (I was a bit surprised when I first read that several years ago.) From the Wikipedia article about IBM: IBM has 12 research laboratories worldwide, bundled into IBM Research. As of 2013 the company held the record for most patents generated by a business for 22 consecutive years.[16] Its employees have garnered five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.[17] Notable company inventions include the automated teller machine (ATM), the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, the magnetic stripe card, the relational database, the Universal Product Code (UPC), the financial swap, the Fortran programming language, SABRE airline reservation system, dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), copper wiring in semiconductors, the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) semiconductor manufacturing process, and Watson artificial intelligence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM

slater 11y ago

Lotus Notes! Hey what's with the downvotes :(

nosnos 11y ago

Shitty marketing platforms.

sgt101 11y ago

IBM tries to sell things. It is not always clear what those things are, what they are for or what they will cost, but the main function of IBM is selling. Things.