6 ms·

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

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.
  - chrisseaton 11y ago
    Right - I thought a 401(k) was simply a pension though? Did there used to be something else that some companies still offer?
    - mikeyouse 11y ago
      Pensions are known as "Defined Benefit" programs and 401(k)s are "Defined Contribution" programs. The difference is pretty much what it sounds like. If you had a pension, you knew exactly how much money per year you'd make in retirement (the benefits were agreed to ahead of time). With a 401(k), you know how much exactly you're contributing and how much is in 'your' account, but the value of your retirement accounts in the future is dependent solely on how much you contribute and your personal investing prowess. As companies and public entities underfunded pensions over the past 40 years, pensions started going bankrupt or dramatically cutting contractually obligated benefits that were to be paid to retirees, so companies began switching to employee-owned plans. Shifting the burden of investing in retirement to the employees rather than the companies has its benefits but I think we're going to see a lot more elderly poverty as the boomers retire since on average, people are terrible at investing.
      - ryandrake 11y ago
        Getting a bit off topic, but when we find that people's 401(k) plans are not enough to retire on, we're not going to see more elderly poverty. The elderly vote. We're going to see young taxpayers making up the difference. The move from mentions to self-directed retirement plans is essentially a wealth transfer from future workers to current corporations.
        mikeyouse 11y ago
        I think that seems optimistic. The elderly do vote, but they consistently vote for people who cut their benefits... Every single budget negotiation results in cuts to medicare and social security, which by definition are cutting benefits to the elderly. I think you're right on a macro level, the tax burden is being shifted to the younger and less politically active, but based on actual legislative action, it seems defense and social issues are more important to the elderly than retirement benefits.
- Milner08 11y ago
  I cant speak for anywhere else but the UK they offer pensions.
  - ionised 11y ago
    Yeah. They made worksplace pensions opt-out recently as well due to the massive scare we have over so many people of working age not having saved anything for retirement. I was automatically opted in to my workplace pension, into which I just pay 5% per month which my employer matches. I'll likely increase that amount next month though.
Milner08 11y ago
They still do lots of storage products like SAN Volume Controller, Storwize, FlashSystems and XIV. However they are currently focusing on cloud, for that they have Softlayer and BlueMix. In terms of other products MQ is still pretty big, so its CICS and as you said Websphere (which I believe has a free offering?). They still have the Power business and the Z server offering. They have SPSS, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational. Then they also have GBS (Business services) and GTS (Technical services). Obviously they also have Watson. Some of the Watson services are available on BlueMix and they're pretty good. Currently I think Watson is branching out into all sorts of new areas. Health care is a big area of interest. They also have ETS (Emerging Technology) which does client stuff, research and the like. There is also a fairly big IOT department (But I don't know what happens there).
- roymurdock 11y ago
  To add: they recently announced an investment of $3bn over 4 years in the IoT division, which will probably be focused mostly on analytics & will somehow tie in with Watson & Bluemix, which are the strongest pieces in their portfolio at the moment. [1] They also broke out an additional "Education" unit within the IoT business unit, ostensibly to compete with PTC Thingworx, and Intel+Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc. in the student/teacher/maker market. [2] [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibms-3-billion-investment-will-drive-iot-growth-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibms-3-billion-investment... [2] https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47660.wss https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47660.wss
  - sanmon3186 11y ago
    To add further, IBM's biggest revenue source is not technology and software, but its IT/business services & consulting wing which is no different than most IT outsourcing companies in the world. Of course their products do influence some of the work done by these.
- mrbill 11y ago
  We tested out Storwize years ago before IBM bought them.. What a piece of garbage, in my experience. "Oh, it won't slow down access to the NetApp at all!"... riiiight. Had them sitting in front of the filers for two days before we yanked them out. Then it took them another TWO YEARS to send us boxes to return the systems despite repeated requests.
rdtsc 11y ago
> I was there in 2001-ish when they scrapped pensions, though the thought of pensions actually existing is a novel concept today. Novel. Hmm, I was working in software industry for 15+ years never seen place haven pensions. Do you mean 401k plans instead?
- epc 11y ago
  No, IBM had defined-benefit pensions, with 401ks as supplemental. In 2000 they announced that they would do away with pensions entirely for anyone not within N years of retirement (I don't recall at this point, possibly 5 or ten years). For those "near" retirement IBM would cease paying into the pension plan but they would still received a traditional pension from the funds up until that point. There were a number of lawsuits over the conversion: https://www.google.com/search?q=ibm+pension+lawsuit&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=ibm+pension+lawsuit&ie=utf-8... with a mix of results for employees and the company.
  - rdtsc 11y ago
    Interesting. Thanks for explaining. Do other companies in tech have pensions? I just never heard of that before. I guess maybe in the context of the US Post Office (how Republicans forced it to fund retirement for so many year ahead, in hopes to bankrupt it and show how government services are ineffective and broken)
    - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
      Very few companies have those "traditional" pensions any more. Most of the companies that did have them discontinued them long ago. Just google for "pension liabilities" to see why. About the only organizations that still have them feed at the public trough. And they're having problems with funding. Here's a recent story about a state transit agency. Its pension plan is over $800 million in the hole. And that's just one agency in one state. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/27/pension-liabilities-growing-even-state-contributes-more/0ZXm9BRxpYb3crikKdJ9pM/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/27/pension-liab...
    - 11y ago
Thrymr 11y ago
They used to make punch card equipment and typewriters. They've been around a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM

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.
- chrisseaton 11y ago
  Right - I thought a 401(k) was simply a pension though? Did there used to be something else that some companies still offer?
  - mikeyouse 11y ago
    Pensions are known as "Defined Benefit" programs and 401(k)s are "Defined Contribution" programs. The difference is pretty much what it sounds like. If you had a pension, you knew exactly how much money per year you'd make in retirement (the benefits were agreed to ahead of time). With a 401(k), you know how much exactly you're contributing and how much is in 'your' account, but the value of your retirement accounts in the future is dependent solely on how much you contribute and your personal investing prowess. As companies and public entities underfunded pensions over the past 40 years, pensions started going bankrupt or dramatically cutting contractually obligated benefits that were to be paid to retirees, so companies began switching to employee-owned plans. Shifting the burden of investing in retirement to the employees rather than the companies has its benefits but I think we're going to see a lot more elderly poverty as the boomers retire since on average, people are terrible at investing.
    - ryandrake 11y ago
      Getting a bit off topic, but when we find that people's 401(k) plans are not enough to retire on, we're not going to see more elderly poverty. The elderly vote. We're going to see young taxpayers making up the difference. The move from mentions to self-directed retirement plans is essentially a wealth transfer from future workers to current corporations.
      - mikeyouse 11y ago
        I think that seems optimistic. The elderly do vote, but they consistently vote for people who cut their benefits... Every single budget negotiation results in cuts to medicare and social security, which by definition are cutting benefits to the elderly. I think you're right on a macro level, the tax burden is being shifted to the younger and less politically active, but based on actual legislative action, it seems defense and social issues are more important to the elderly than retirement benefits.
Milner08 11y ago
I cant speak for anywhere else but the UK they offer pensions.
- ionised 11y ago
  Yeah. They made worksplace pensions opt-out recently as well due to the massive scare we have over so many people of working age not having saved anything for retirement. I was automatically opted in to my workplace pension, into which I just pay 5% per month which my employer matches. I'll likely increase that amount next month though.

Milner08 11y ago

They still do lots of storage products like SAN Volume Controller, Storwize, FlashSystems and XIV. However they are currently focusing on cloud, for that they have Softlayer and BlueMix. In terms of other products MQ is still pretty big, so its CICS and as you said Websphere (which I believe has a free offering?). They still have the Power business and the Z server offering. They have SPSS, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational. Then they also have GBS (Business services) and GTS (Technical services). Obviously they also have Watson. Some of the Watson services are available on BlueMix and they're pretty good. Currently I think Watson is branching out into all sorts of new areas. Health care is a big area of interest. They also have ETS (Emerging Technology) which does client stuff, research and the like. There is also a fairly big IOT department (But I don't know what happens there).

roymurdock 11y ago
To add: they recently announced an investment of $3bn over 4 years in the IoT division, which will probably be focused mostly on analytics & will somehow tie in with Watson & Bluemix, which are the strongest pieces in their portfolio at the moment. [1] They also broke out an additional "Education" unit within the IoT business unit, ostensibly to compete with PTC Thingworx, and Intel+Arduino, Raspberry Pi etc. in the student/teacher/maker market. [2] [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibms-3-billion-investment-will-drive-iot-growth-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibms-3-billion-investment... [2] https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47660.wss https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47660.wss
- sanmon3186 11y ago
  To add further, IBM's biggest revenue source is not technology and software, but its IT/business services & consulting wing which is no different than most IT outsourcing companies in the world. Of course their products do influence some of the work done by these.
mrbill 11y ago
We tested out Storwize years ago before IBM bought them.. What a piece of garbage, in my experience. "Oh, it won't slow down access to the NetApp at all!"... riiiight. Had them sitting in front of the filers for two days before we yanked them out. Then it took them another TWO YEARS to send us boxes to return the systems despite repeated requests.

rdtsc 11y ago

> I was there in 2001-ish when they scrapped pensions, though the thought of pensions actually existing is a novel concept today. Novel. Hmm, I was working in software industry for 15+ years never seen place haven pensions. Do you mean 401k plans instead?

epc 11y ago
No, IBM had defined-benefit pensions, with 401ks as supplemental. In 2000 they announced that they would do away with pensions entirely for anyone not within N years of retirement (I don't recall at this point, possibly 5 or ten years). For those "near" retirement IBM would cease paying into the pension plan but they would still received a traditional pension from the funds up until that point. There were a number of lawsuits over the conversion: https://www.google.com/search?q=ibm+pension+lawsuit&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=ibm+pension+lawsuit&ie=utf-8... with a mix of results for employees and the company.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  Interesting. Thanks for explaining. Do other companies in tech have pensions? I just never heard of that before. I guess maybe in the context of the US Post Office (how Republicans forced it to fund retirement for so many year ahead, in hopes to bankrupt it and show how government services are ineffective and broken)
  - PhantomGremlin 11y ago
    Very few companies have those "traditional" pensions any more. Most of the companies that did have them discontinued them long ago. Just google for "pension liabilities" to see why. About the only organizations that still have them feed at the public trough. And they're having problems with funding. Here's a recent story about a state transit agency. Its pension plan is over $800 million in the hole. And that's just one agency in one state. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/27/pension-liabilities-growing-even-state-contributes-more/0ZXm9BRxpYb3crikKdJ9pM/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/27/pension-liab...
  - 11y ago

Thrymr 11y ago

They used to make punch card equipment and typewriters. They've been around a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM