4 ms·

It just seems like IBM is always 5-10 years behind where they should be.

rdtsc 11y ago
> It just seems like IBM is always 5-10 years behind where they should be. What do you think they should be doing that's modern, cool and not 5-10 years behind? Unikernels? X-for-Y services ( Uber for dogs )?
- discodave 11y ago
  IBM should have built AWS before Amazon did.
  - matwood 11y ago
    And they still would have lost to Amazon as they would have priced it such that no one except the government and extra large companies could pay the bill.
- Cookingboy 11y ago
  AWS, or their own version of Box/Dropbox. (I guess that's why they have such a strong partnership with Box now).
  - derefr 11y ago
    Working at (a company subsidiary to) IBM, I think there's a pretty unique culture of "buy rather than build" here. IBM has its own share of weird internal infrastructure (hello Notes/Domino), but for the things we don't "have our own version of", IBM seems perfectly happy to pick some small company and use their service, rather than entering a vertical just to have an answer for a competitor's entry. Basically, IBM is still fundamentally a consulting "solutions" company; their products are things they needed to build to solve a particular recurring consulting problem for their clients, that couldn't be solved with an application of off-the-shelf technology from a partner. This is reflected in IBM's own culture; we'll also look for an off-the-shelf solution[0]—or ask a partner to tailor their product to us—before even considering building something internal. "Scratching an itch" infrastructure projects like Facebook's Cassandra just don't really happen here. I doubt IBM could have "productized the infrastructure" the way Amazon did to end up with AWS; IBM doesn't have any unique infrastructure. BlueMix, such as it is, isn't a reflection of anything we were already doing; it was simply a de novo solution to a particular recurring consulting problem with unique constraints (high levels of isolation and on-premise collocation) that meant we couldn't just sell the client a solution by some IaaS partner of ours. For internal projects, we frequently still just use AWS or DigitalOcean or whathaveyou (although this is changing as BlueMix becomes more competent to serve our own particular needs as an "internal customer.") --- [0] ...as long as it's not built by one of our competitors in the "all things to all people megacorp" world. We use Slack, but turning on Google Docs integration is against security policy: we trust a small company like Slack with our IP, but trusting Google is right out.
manigandham 11y ago
Where "should" they be?
- 5ersi 11y ago
  Heading where the puck is going to be! ;)
tszming 11y ago
I can't see the problem if their customers are also 5-10 years behind where they should be..
ghuntley 11y ago
I don't think you quite understand IBM's value proposition - IBM's business has always been about serving the late majority and laggards.
- codingdave 11y ago
  No, that is not even slightly true. Historically they were on the forefront of hardware and software for business. Hence the name. In recent years, they have struggled to keep up. But their lagging product lines are a result of poor execution, not deliberate strategy.
icculus42 11y ago
Worked at IBM most of my professional career. Normally do not comment.... cuz... job and whatnot. IBM is pretty big. One downfall is they can't turn on a dime. For IBM to see something new and move on it, means, possibly spending two years on it... which means it won't be the big thing anymore. Or buying something that is hot.... to find out later if its hot and new or a flash in the pan. So yeah, they are behind. What has MicroSoft done lately? Where is Apple without Jobs?
- 5ersi 11y ago
  Where is Apple without Jobs? When Steve resigned (2011) they had 108B in revenue, 2015 they had 230B. That's phenomenal growth. MSFT? 73B in 2012 to 93B in 2015. Solid growth. IBM: from 103B in 2012 down to 82B in 2015. So yeah, Apple and MS are growing, while IBM is declining.
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    These numbers can be explained with IBM having peaked before Microsoft which in turn peaked before Apple in terms of product development. So Apple's revenues are still growing fast, Microsoft's are growing more slowly and IBM's are declining - with none of them doing new stuff and all of them being past the peak (I'm not sure that's actually true, just saying that grandparent's point/question was what they've done lately/that they didn't do much, and this point is not refuted by revenue growth numbers because revenue lags a lot after product starts. Microsoft's greatest hits by far are still Windows and Office which it develops since the 80s.)
  - Cookingboy 11y ago
    Yet AAPL has the same P/E as IBM lol...Wall Street really hates that company...
rhizome 11y ago
IBM has so much cool stuff you don't even know about. I'm not even really sure what they would be 5-10 years behind in: they're not an Internet company, their hardware is not commodity, their services are not aimed at YC-culture at all...
digi_owl 11y ago
Dunno. The last CES had all the major companies using Ustream to stream their keynotes.
seibelj 11y ago
IBM has an incredible salesforce with connections to every government in the world. They were resellers for some of my last company's software and the countries and companies they closed were unbelievable, and impossible for any startup to have a chance of selling into on their own. The big companies and governments that is IBM's bread and butter do not purchase hot new SaaS products from 10 person companies. They want stable, functional, enterprise software that integrates with a bunch of ancient systems and can run on-premises (private cloud).

rdtsc 11y ago

> It just seems like IBM is always 5-10 years behind where they should be. What do you think they should be doing that's modern, cool and not 5-10 years behind? Unikernels? X-for-Y services ( Uber for dogs )?

discodave 11y ago
IBM should have built AWS before Amazon did.
- matwood 11y ago
  And they still would have lost to Amazon as they would have priced it such that no one except the government and extra large companies could pay the bill.
Cookingboy 11y ago
AWS, or their own version of Box/Dropbox. (I guess that's why they have such a strong partnership with Box now).
- derefr 11y ago
  Working at (a company subsidiary to) IBM, I think there's a pretty unique culture of "buy rather than build" here. IBM has its own share of weird internal infrastructure (hello Notes/Domino), but for the things we don't "have our own version of", IBM seems perfectly happy to pick some small company and use their service, rather than entering a vertical just to have an answer for a competitor's entry. Basically, IBM is still fundamentally a consulting "solutions" company; their products are things they needed to build to solve a particular recurring consulting problem for their clients, that couldn't be solved with an application of off-the-shelf technology from a partner. This is reflected in IBM's own culture; we'll also look for an off-the-shelf solution[0]—or ask a partner to tailor their product to us—before even considering building something internal. "Scratching an itch" infrastructure projects like Facebook's Cassandra just don't really happen here. I doubt IBM could have "productized the infrastructure" the way Amazon did to end up with AWS; IBM doesn't have any unique infrastructure. BlueMix, such as it is, isn't a reflection of anything we were already doing; it was simply a de novo solution to a particular recurring consulting problem with unique constraints (high levels of isolation and on-premise collocation) that meant we couldn't just sell the client a solution by some IaaS partner of ours. For internal projects, we frequently still just use AWS or DigitalOcean or whathaveyou (although this is changing as BlueMix becomes more competent to serve our own particular needs as an "internal customer.") --- [0] ...as long as it's not built by one of our competitors in the "all things to all people megacorp" world. We use Slack, but turning on Google Docs integration is against security policy: we trust a small company like Slack with our IP, but trusting Google is right out.

manigandham 11y ago

Where "should" they be?

5ersi 11y ago
Heading where the puck is going to be! ;)

tszming 11y ago

I can't see the problem if their customers are also 5-10 years behind where they should be..

ghuntley 11y ago

I don't think you quite understand IBM's value proposition - IBM's business has always been about serving the late majority and laggards.

codingdave 11y ago
No, that is not even slightly true. Historically they were on the forefront of hardware and software for business. Hence the name. In recent years, they have struggled to keep up. But their lagging product lines are a result of poor execution, not deliberate strategy.

icculus42 11y ago

Worked at IBM most of my professional career. Normally do not comment.... cuz... job and whatnot. IBM is pretty big. One downfall is they can't turn on a dime. For IBM to see something new and move on it, means, possibly spending two years on it... which means it won't be the big thing anymore. Or buying something that is hot.... to find out later if its hot and new or a flash in the pan. So yeah, they are behind. What has MicroSoft done lately? Where is Apple without Jobs?

5ersi 11y ago
Where is Apple without Jobs? When Steve resigned (2011) they had 108B in revenue, 2015 they had 230B. That's phenomenal growth. MSFT? 73B in 2012 to 93B in 2015. Solid growth. IBM: from 103B in 2012 down to 82B in 2015. So yeah, Apple and MS are growing, while IBM is declining.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  These numbers can be explained with IBM having peaked before Microsoft which in turn peaked before Apple in terms of product development. So Apple's revenues are still growing fast, Microsoft's are growing more slowly and IBM's are declining - with none of them doing new stuff and all of them being past the peak (I'm not sure that's actually true, just saying that grandparent's point/question was what they've done lately/that they didn't do much, and this point is not refuted by revenue growth numbers because revenue lags a lot after product starts. Microsoft's greatest hits by far are still Windows and Office which it develops since the 80s.)
- Cookingboy 11y ago
  Yet AAPL has the same P/E as IBM lol...Wall Street really hates that company...

rhizome 11y ago

IBM has so much cool stuff you don't even know about. I'm not even really sure what they would be 5-10 years behind in: they're not an Internet company, their hardware is not commodity, their services are not aimed at YC-culture at all...

digi_owl 11y ago

Dunno. The last CES had all the major companies using Ustream to stream their keynotes.

seibelj 11y ago

IBM has an incredible salesforce with connections to every government in the world. They were resellers for some of my last company's software and the countries and companies they closed were unbelievable, and impossible for any startup to have a chance of selling into on their own. The big companies and governments that is IBM's bread and butter do not purchase hot new SaaS products from 10 person companies. They want stable, functional, enterprise software that integrates with a bunch of ancient systems and can run on-premises (private cloud).