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Pretty trivial stuff in the context of an $81.7bn corporation. IBM makes the vast majority of its turnover and profits from closed, proprietary systems, most of

by scholia 11y ago

Pretty trivial stuff in the context of an $81.7bn corporation. IBM makes the vast majority of its turnover and profits from closed, proprietary systems, most of which are in decline (it used to be a $107bn corporation). > They're really not hurting the consumer at all. The public pays indirectly to support the extremely expensive IBM systems that, partly for historical reasons, still run almost all Fortune 500 companies. You may say that "They make a ton of money by bilking banks/the feds/states", but ultimately it's consumers and taxpayers who foot the bills. PS You forgot OpenPower ;-)

iheartmemcache 11y ago
I considered that -- we're effectively subsidizing research. I feel way better about that, then giving defense contractors 300/hr to drag&drop some Telerik components into Visual Studio. I figure that's the lesser of two evils IMO. Some companies don't even pay taxes -take Apple[1] who posted 30 billion in profit (for those of you who haven't paid retained earnings taxes, that's ~10 billion that should have gone to the federal government, and if you live in California, your state wouldn't be broke anymore (or significantly less broke)). More than $100 billion dollars homed in a nominal 'headquarters' to rob hard working Americans. (Granted I'd be transfer pricing too if my corporation could afford to retain Skadden, haha.) On the upside, I think they pay the salary for a few LLVM guys. We digress. Support other startups, if you have a startup - use Tarsnap. ;) [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/29/apple-tax-profits-ireland-cork http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/29/apple-tax-... (The Guardian does have a bit of a liberal slant, FYI. Think of them as the UK's NYT.)
- scholia 11y ago
  The spending on pure research is trivial compared with IBM's profits. In its last financial year: "Total capital return to shareholders of $9.5 billion; dividends of $4.9 billion and gross share repurchases of $4.6 billion" http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/48846.wss http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/48846.wss IBM also spends a lot of money buying dozens of companies to bolster its results. These include These include Cognos ($5bn), Softlayer ($2bn), Netezza ($1.7bn), Kenexa ($1.4bn) and Trusteer ($1bn). http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-vs-microsoft-and-the-battle-for-the-corporate-cloud-business/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-vs-microsoft-and-the-battle...

by scholia 11y ago

iheartmemcache 11y ago

I considered that -- we're effectively subsidizing research. I feel way better about that, then giving defense contractors 300/hr to drag&drop some Telerik components into Visual Studio. I figure that's the lesser of two evils IMO. Some companies don't even pay taxes -take Apple[1] who posted 30 billion in profit (for those of you who haven't paid retained earnings taxes, that's ~10 billion that should have gone to the federal government, and if you live in California, your state wouldn't be broke anymore (or significantly less broke)). More than $100 billion dollars homed in a nominal 'headquarters' to rob hard working Americans. (Granted I'd be transfer pricing too if my corporation could afford to retain Skadden, haha.) On the upside, I think they pay the salary for a few LLVM guys. We digress. Support other startups, if you have a startup - use Tarsnap. ;) [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/29/apple-tax-profits-ireland-cork http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/29/apple-tax-... (The Guardian does have a bit of a liberal slant, FYI. Think of them as the UK's NYT.)

scholia 11y ago
The spending on pure research is trivial compared with IBM's profits. In its last financial year: "Total capital return to shareholders of $9.5 billion; dividends of $4.9 billion and gross share repurchases of $4.6 billion" http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/48846.wss http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/48846.wss IBM also spends a lot of money buying dozens of companies to bolster its results. These include These include Cognos ($5bn), Softlayer ($2bn), Netezza ($1.7bn), Kenexa ($1.4bn) and Trusteer ($1bn). http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-vs-microsoft-and-the-battle-for-the-corporate-cloud-business/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-vs-microsoft-and-the-battle...