4 ms·

Why did I leave IBM? (2006)

32 points by luu 11y ago

chris_wot 11y ago
Is it just me, or has IBM been resting on their laurels for quite some time now? I fear they have given in to bean counters. They only recently made a lot of experienced staff redundant, their outsourced operations are quite awful (especially in the SAP space), they seem to no longer be able to do infrastructure well, their consultancy division has lost a lot of lustre and it's been quite a while since I've seen anything terribly innovative come out of IBM that made me sit up and take notice of what they doing. Does IBM have anything going for it any more?
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Many people said they succumbed to the low hanging services fruits. It surely isn't the flagship it was. But IBM is old, and still large, they saw many eras, I wouldn't be surprised if they turn it around once again.
  - meowface 11y ago
    A large number of enterprises still deeply rely on them. I definitely don't see them going out of business any time soon.
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      Just yesterday I was thinking, IBM went too much into 'shallow' software tech. Building a lot of stuff around Java, Eclipse etc that wasn't valuable neither for them or for customers. Instead of focusing on brand and tech, they should bring back talents that solves problems on anything. I'm sure that would sell like hot pancakes.
      - UK-AL 11y ago
        That's where the money is in software. Expensive middleware.
        agumonkey 11y ago
        Short term maybe but it is detrimental IMO.
      - UK-AL 11y ago
        That's where the money is in software. Expensive middleware.
    - Daviey 11y ago
      "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment".
      - michaelcampbell 11y ago
        "but they should". I say this as a developer forced to work with IBM technologies (mainly WebSphere, and J2EE) for a number of years in the financial industry. I was an idiot for staying for as long as I did, and my career suffered for it.
        agumonkey 11y ago
        I believe their hardware is still superb though, but this market shrunk
- jjtheblunt 11y ago
  Power8. Z/os
  - PostOnce 11y ago
    Watson? It's got a billion dollars in funding and it seems capable of finding many customers in medicine.

32 points by luu 11y ago

Is it just me, or has IBM been resting on their laurels for quite some time now? I fear they have given in to bean counters. They only recently made a lot of experienced staff redundant, their outsourced operations are quite awful (especially in the SAP space), they seem to no longer be able to do infrastructure well, their consultancy division has lost a lot of lustre and it's been quite a while since I've seen anything terribly innovative come out of IBM that made me sit up and take notice of what they doing. Does IBM have anything going for it any more?

agumonkey 11y ago
Many people said they succumbed to the low hanging services fruits. It surely isn't the flagship it was. But IBM is old, and still large, they saw many eras, I wouldn't be surprised if they turn it around once again.
- meowface 11y ago
  A large number of enterprises still deeply rely on them. I definitely don't see them going out of business any time soon.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Just yesterday I was thinking, IBM went too much into 'shallow' software tech. Building a lot of stuff around Java, Eclipse etc that wasn't valuable neither for them or for customers. Instead of focusing on brand and tech, they should bring back talents that solves problems on anything. I'm sure that would sell like hot pancakes.
    - UK-AL 11y ago
      That's where the money is in software. Expensive middleware.
      - agumonkey 11y ago
        Short term maybe but it is detrimental IMO.
    - UK-AL 11y ago
      That's where the money is in software. Expensive middleware.
  - Daviey 11y ago
    "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment".
    - michaelcampbell 11y ago
      "but they should". I say this as a developer forced to work with IBM technologies (mainly WebSphere, and J2EE) for a number of years in the financial industry. I was an idiot for staying for as long as I did, and my career suffered for it.
      - agumonkey 11y ago
        I believe their hardware is still superb though, but this market shrunk
jjtheblunt 11y ago
Power8. Z/os
- PostOnce 11y ago
  Watson? It's got a billion dollars in funding and it seems capable of finding many customers in medicine.