9 ms·

IBM Design

58 points by bkmn 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- jchendy 11y ago
  IBM actually seems to be taking design very seriously. They're hiring 1000 designers, and the design program has significant support from the CEO. More background here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/business/ibms-design-centered-strategy-to-set-free-the-squares.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/business/ibms-design-cente...
  - zekevermillion 11y ago
    Is there a design equivalent to the mythical man-month in software engineering?
    - qume 11y ago
      Very good question. Shame no replies
    - cedotal 11y ago
      Yes -- It's Fred Brooks' own "The Design of Design:" http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Essays-Computer-Scientist/dp/0201362988 http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Essays-Computer-Scientist/d...
    - protomyth 11y ago
      1,000 people with bad taste do not make a Sir Jonathan Ive. I get the feeling adding designers to a project has the same startup costs as hiring new programs with the results of crappy sorta conforming to the theme design being just as noticeable.
    - douche 11y ago
      1000 monkeys throwing feces at the wall...
    - wmf 11y ago
      If you assign 1,000 designers to 1,000 different products then it avoids scaling problems.
      - tschuy 11y ago
        However, then you wind up with 1,000 different products with 1,000 different design languages, if the designs are even thought through well enough to be considered having a design language.
        wmf 11y ago
        Not necessarily. One person defines the design language and the other 1,000 apply it to different products.
      - nfriedly 11y ago
        Yep, I'm on an engineering team at IBM and this is basically what's happening. In my (admittedly limited) experience, I can only think of one thing that had multiple designers working on it, and it was basically a marketing website. There are design guidelines and even some base templates and sass files and such to keep things looking somewhat similar.
        makeitso_or_not 11y ago
        I'm a recent hire at IBM Design and leading a design team. nfriendly, your experience is what it's like working with a non-IBM Design team. The old way is to have a single designer on something and that person has little to no authority to be the users through the design process. That's all changing now. From my understanding, there have only been a couple of hundred products (in the 3 years since IBM Design was created) that have been updated using IBM Design Thinking. There is actually a dedicated design team (min 5 designers) working on each product that is getting attention at that moment in time. But there are over 5000 products that IBM sells, so it's going to take a while to get to them all (also assuming some of these will be consolidated as the design cycles address the user's needs). There will be a lot of time that passes before all the engineers at IBM (with it's 400K+ employees) get to have a dedicated design team on their product. Having been a number of startups and advertising agencies before this, the "design culture" is strong here with a lot of smart folks fighting to turn around a very very big ship.
    - rrrx3 11y ago
      Interesting question. Theoretically, no, because ideas are a dime a dozen, and there's no "one true way" to solve a design problem. But I think what you'd run into over time, which may be parallel to the man-month myth, is a higher-order approximation of groupthink. Meaning - "Let's apply this interaction pattern to solve this class of problem because we've done it before," repeated ad-nauseam. This will actually result in that parallel of the man-month myth - "solutions" (note the quotes) will be churned out at an increasing velocity, like a giant rubber stamp factory. The big difference is obviously ideas are much easier to create and document than software is to build. I don't think this is a result of the User Centered Design process, however. I think it's a result of the oversimplification of the interaction design sub-process, coupled with the broad lack of interest in the business improvement part of the process. The problem with design studios this large, and operating on this consultatory premise, is that they will never get to influence the business "why" of solving a problem - they will always be handed a brief, and will always have their solution bounded by decisions made prior to their involvement. They are compelled to do work on what someone else has determined to be the problem, not to uncover the problem themselves and work outwardly from there. You actually see this all the time in finance - there are entire companies built around the idea of churning out datagrid UIs to banks that don't ever stop to consider the real underlying conditions of why a process is the way it is, or have the opportunity to change it. It just results in a lot of same-same being generated over and over again, and it's easy money for consulting groups to get into the biz - just buy a small (or several) design shop and start billing yourself as being in tune with "UX." Deloitte, KPMG, MarkIt On Demand, EY, PWC, Accenture, EMC, and a bunch of other places are doing it just that way.
    - vvanders 11y ago
      I believe it's called Design by Committee.
  - y04nn 11y ago
    Of course it's very important to have a beautiful Z System mainframes. I like the effort they are putting into it, but do they customers care (even for the software)?
    - dave5104 11y ago
      Design is more than how something looks. To reframe your question, you might say "but do their customers care if the stuff they buy works?" To which I hope they do care.
      - jchendy 11y ago
        I definitely agree with your point, so I apologize for nit picking. IMO, "does it work?" is a QA question. The design question would be "does it do anything useful?"
    - mkohlmyr 11y ago
      FWIW Since IBM bought Silverpop the product has had a gigantic design (and functionality) upgrade. It is very noticeable and has made the product feel far less painful to use.
  - ksec 11y ago
    IBM dont have a resources or Engineering problem. I dont think they lack talents either. And their biggest problem isn't design. It is their culture, and I would argue a lack of focus and direction.
- vinay427 11y ago
  Do we really need to apply ageism here? This industry (and especially software engineering) already has enough problems related to it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - askafriend 11y ago
      Just stop.
- sawyerjhood 11y ago
  I didn't notice the navbar until you pointed it out, it does look oddly out of place.
jchendy 11y ago
Is there anything new here? This site was all over the tech news last year when it was released, but I can't tell what, if anything, has changed now.
- thothsscribe 11y ago
  They recently updated their design thinking process. Pretty much the same thing, but more focused on iterative approaches?
fakhar50 11y ago
this is nice
neurobashing 11y ago
I note Apple products featured quite prominently.
- jchendy 11y ago
  Possibly related to this: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for-huge-expansive-enterprise-push/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for...
- jhallenworld 11y ago
  I like the DEC PDP-8 shown on "Machines in motion", sitting on top of the IBM tape drive. All modern computers are boring :-)
butu5 11y ago
Even though IBM doesn't seems very sexy startup. But they survived 100+ years and trying to find way to stay in business. They learn and adapt. They contribute significantly to Open Source. Now they are understanding importance of UI/UX design and trying to invest heavily on it. Lot of big name startup even though succeed for short or medium term but struggling a lot in long run. I really enjoy reading the below book about IBM Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V., Jr. Gerstner (Outsider came to IBM as CEO) IBM is nearly in verge of collapse during early 90s. And he pulled it off. http://www.amazon.com/Who-Says-Elephants-Cant-Dance/dp/0060523808 http://www.amazon.com/Who-Says-Elephants-Cant-Dance/dp/00605...
- arrty88 11y ago
  I would like to see IBM release something similar to Material Design / Bootstrap - that is home grown from their own design experts.
  - mhsenkow 11y ago
    >_<....you should read the site more.
  - jchendy 11y ago
    Material and Bootstrap are very different, so I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but FWIW, IBM does have some resources available, including what appears to be working code in the "animation library" https://www.ibm.com/design/language/resources https://www.ibm.com/design/language/resources
    - makeitso_or_not 11y ago
      Yup, the IBM Design Language is a growing library/guidelines for all new IBM Designed products. Still a work in progress, but there is finally a unified look/feel/function for future apps/sites.
- mchahn 11y ago
  > But they survived 100+ years and trying to find way to stay in business. They haven't had to try too hard to find they way. They sold to big business 100 years ago and they still do today. The fact that computers became prominent in smaller businesses doesn't change their success with the biggest.
andreastt 11y ago
96 HTTP requests, totaling 5406.72 KB, in 12.87 seconds. Maybe good design for print, but certainly not for web.
- grp 11y ago
  I was going to say it works like a charm with javascript disabled, but it's just broken fast!
fallingmeat 11y ago
Hey IBM, instead of just telling us you care, how about actually creating a delightful experience for ClearCase, ClearQuest or DOORS. I guess it's easier to simply say "Design" 37 times on a static site, maybe add some bright colors, people of 'diverse' background and a hoodie for effect. Nailed it!
- ritchiea 11y ago
  Doesn't it seem like they're trying to do that by announcing they're hiring designers?
- thothsscribe 11y ago
  IBM has hundreds, if not thousands, of products that they own and maintain. Understand that the research for a design, designing it, and then developing it takes months to years to accomplish. IBM won't be able to update all of their products, but they will work on the ones that they can and then carry design consideration to all new products. Thats all a company can do. Same goes for Microsoft, Google, etc. IBM is a bit late to the game is their only issue. Also consider, how are they going to get designers/people who care about design if they don't advertise it first. Yes there are products that need work, but to fix that issue they need to say Design 37 and more times just to get the attention of the right people. I am sure in your line of work as well, things don't just happen immediately because you want it to and sometimes to solve one problem you need to solve two or three others first.
  - fallingmeat 11y ago
    ok agreed. hope it works!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
rfreytag 11y ago
Please be cautious when considering working for or with IBM. IBM's poor treatment of employees and customers is widely reported. Do your own research. For example, Cringely has a book outlining IBM's problems: http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/ He has many posts in the same vein (note dates in the URLs): * http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/11/wheres-the-beef-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/11/wheres-the-beef-ibm/ * http://www.cringely.com/2015/07/21/ibm-is-so-screwed/ http://www.cringely.com/2015/07/21/ibm-is-so-screwed/ * http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/ http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/ * http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-next-week/ http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/ * http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/21/ginni-comes-senses-late-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/21/ginni-comes-senses-late-i... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/12/ibms-power8-servers-less-meets-eye/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/12/ibms-power8-servers-less-... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/25/fed-suckered-ibm-failing-cloud-strategy/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/25/fed-suckered-ibm-failing-... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/16/ibm-apple-just-big-deal/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/16/ibm-apple-just-big-deal/ * http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/15/ibm-back-ussr/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/15/ibm-back-ussr/ * http://www.cringely.com/2014/01/23/ibm-sells-intel-server-business-company-doomed/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/01/23/ibm-sells-intel-server-bu... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/07/fulfilling-customer-requirements-is-a-weapon-at-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/07/fulfilling-customer-requi... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/25/the-new-ibm-vampires-in-our-midst/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/25/the-new-ibm-vampires-in-o... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-hand-is-staining-my-window/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-han... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/04/22/the-decline-fall-of-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/04/22/the-decline-fall-of-ibm/ ...and many older columns. See the comment by slantedview in these comments for another example. Cringely isn't the only one offering serious criticisms of IBM: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=problems+at+ibm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=pro...
- rdtsc 11y ago
  Regardless of what happens with IBM, this sounds like someone with a chip on his shoulder. He wrote a book about how bad it is, then blogs about it. It is like someone who got out of a relationship (didn't he work there?), but then keeps obsessing and talking to everyone else about it for 10 years after.
kwahyaj 11y ago
They just released a new Design Thinking framework, it's pretty interesting and worth a look. https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/ https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/
slantedview 11y ago
IBM is truly owe of the most loathsome tech companies in our industry. They have a long record of treating their employees horribly. Many people I know have been laid off at IBM and made to train their (foreign) replacements. One person I know has worked for IBM 3 times (twice through acquisitions) and was laid off all 3 times! Please keep this stuff in mind as a contrast to their flashy new marketing.
- thothsscribe 11y ago
  So IBM just happened to target the same guy three times? Not disagreeing that IBM has had issues with hiring/firing, but three times seems like an insane coincidence.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  They have to. It is part of the strategy and how it can manage to stay alfoat. At some point software consulting business was big so they had consultants for big projects. Then I don't know cloud got bit, so now what should they do, keep hoards of consults on payroll as a jobs program like TSA? Maybe retrain them? The fastest and easiest way it so lay them off. At some point I've heard they sold cheese slicers. They probaby had experts in that. What should they do when the market situation changes? Keep selling and hiring more people in that area or lay them off.
yarou 11y ago
IBM is largely a relic from a bygone era. You know, the era where people of color didn't exist and women were largely relegated to secretarial roles. I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM. When an executive was asked why this was so, they replied that: "the coffee is free, because it will make our engineers more productive." IBM, not even once.
- jldugger 11y ago
  > I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM. I work for the State of Oregon. It's pretty much illegal to give employees free food without a business justification. Buying my own snacks and coffee is the default, and not a huge deal; I'd rather have money to spend as I deem fit than more calories. Complaining about not having a mini fridge full of Red Bull and a cabinet stocked with Doritos is a great way to make yourself look tone deaf and selfish when the vast, vast majority of American society doesn't have these fringe benefits. Far, far worse is the series of things IBM's been doing to benefits. They've shifted the 401k match to the end of the year, so you have to survive any layoffs and stack ranking system to earn your contribution. Early retirement has been slashed from 6 months pay to 1 month.
  - jeoffw 11y ago
    IBM 401k did move matching to the end of the year. I was annoyed about that too until I realized that Google employees only get 50% matching on their contributions, capped at $8250. Meanwhile, IBM contributes 1% automatically and matches 100% of your contributions up to 5% of pay. IBM's 401k benefit is easily verifiable: http://www-01.ibm.com/services/socomm/shared/pdf/IBM401PlusPlanBrochure.pdf http://www-01.ibm.com/services/socomm/shared/pdf/IBM401PlusP... Google no longer lists their 401k benefit publicly, but there is this: https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-Googles-employee-401k-matching https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-Googles-employee-401k-...
- boxidea 11y ago
  I work for a large not-for-profit company. We don't get any free snacks or coffee free here either, but the other benefits outweigh that... like 10% 401a contribution, $30 per month commuter benefit, and $25k tuition reimbursement per year. Coffee and snacks aren't everything. And honestly they're not much.
adventurousocto 11y ago
I was hired as one of the product designers in the winter class of 2015 and love my job. It’s not smooth sailing but it is also my first job out of college and it is incredibly rewarding to see the kind of impact you can have on shipped products and also really inspiring to see a 100 year old company trying to change from the inside out. We have an amazing culture in the design studio and I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else right now.

IBM Design

58 points by bkmn 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

jchendy 11y ago
IBM actually seems to be taking design very seriously. They're hiring 1000 designers, and the design program has significant support from the CEO. More background here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/business/ibms-design-centered-strategy-to-set-free-the-squares.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/business/ibms-design-cente...
- zekevermillion 11y ago
  Is there a design equivalent to the mythical man-month in software engineering?
  - qume 11y ago
    Very good question. Shame no replies
  - cedotal 11y ago
    Yes -- It's Fred Brooks' own "The Design of Design:" http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Essays-Computer-Scientist/dp/0201362988 http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Essays-Computer-Scientist/d...
  - protomyth 11y ago
    1,000 people with bad taste do not make a Sir Jonathan Ive. I get the feeling adding designers to a project has the same startup costs as hiring new programs with the results of crappy sorta conforming to the theme design being just as noticeable.
  - douche 11y ago
    1000 monkeys throwing feces at the wall...
  - wmf 11y ago
    If you assign 1,000 designers to 1,000 different products then it avoids scaling problems.
    - tschuy 11y ago
      However, then you wind up with 1,000 different products with 1,000 different design languages, if the designs are even thought through well enough to be considered having a design language.
      - wmf 11y ago
        Not necessarily. One person defines the design language and the other 1,000 apply it to different products.
    - nfriedly 11y ago
      Yep, I'm on an engineering team at IBM and this is basically what's happening. In my (admittedly limited) experience, I can only think of one thing that had multiple designers working on it, and it was basically a marketing website. There are design guidelines and even some base templates and sass files and such to keep things looking somewhat similar.
      - makeitso_or_not 11y ago
        I'm a recent hire at IBM Design and leading a design team. nfriendly, your experience is what it's like working with a non-IBM Design team. The old way is to have a single designer on something and that person has little to no authority to be the users through the design process. That's all changing now. From my understanding, there have only been a couple of hundred products (in the 3 years since IBM Design was created) that have been updated using IBM Design Thinking. There is actually a dedicated design team (min 5 designers) working on each product that is getting attention at that moment in time. But there are over 5000 products that IBM sells, so it's going to take a while to get to them all (also assuming some of these will be consolidated as the design cycles address the user's needs). There will be a lot of time that passes before all the engineers at IBM (with it's 400K+ employees) get to have a dedicated design team on their product. Having been a number of startups and advertising agencies before this, the "design culture" is strong here with a lot of smart folks fighting to turn around a very very big ship.
  - rrrx3 11y ago
    Interesting question. Theoretically, no, because ideas are a dime a dozen, and there's no "one true way" to solve a design problem. But I think what you'd run into over time, which may be parallel to the man-month myth, is a higher-order approximation of groupthink. Meaning - "Let's apply this interaction pattern to solve this class of problem because we've done it before," repeated ad-nauseam. This will actually result in that parallel of the man-month myth - "solutions" (note the quotes) will be churned out at an increasing velocity, like a giant rubber stamp factory. The big difference is obviously ideas are much easier to create and document than software is to build. I don't think this is a result of the User Centered Design process, however. I think it's a result of the oversimplification of the interaction design sub-process, coupled with the broad lack of interest in the business improvement part of the process. The problem with design studios this large, and operating on this consultatory premise, is that they will never get to influence the business "why" of solving a problem - they will always be handed a brief, and will always have their solution bounded by decisions made prior to their involvement. They are compelled to do work on what someone else has determined to be the problem, not to uncover the problem themselves and work outwardly from there. You actually see this all the time in finance - there are entire companies built around the idea of churning out datagrid UIs to banks that don't ever stop to consider the real underlying conditions of why a process is the way it is, or have the opportunity to change it. It just results in a lot of same-same being generated over and over again, and it's easy money for consulting groups to get into the biz - just buy a small (or several) design shop and start billing yourself as being in tune with "UX." Deloitte, KPMG, MarkIt On Demand, EY, PWC, Accenture, EMC, and a bunch of other places are doing it just that way.
  - vvanders 11y ago
    I believe it's called Design by Committee.
- y04nn 11y ago
  Of course it's very important to have a beautiful Z System mainframes. I like the effort they are putting into it, but do they customers care (even for the software)?
  - dave5104 11y ago
    Design is more than how something looks. To reframe your question, you might say "but do their customers care if the stuff they buy works?" To which I hope they do care.
    - jchendy 11y ago
      I definitely agree with your point, so I apologize for nit picking. IMO, "does it work?" is a QA question. The design question would be "does it do anything useful?"
  - mkohlmyr 11y ago
    FWIW Since IBM bought Silverpop the product has had a gigantic design (and functionality) upgrade. It is very noticeable and has made the product feel far less painful to use.
- ksec 11y ago
  IBM dont have a resources or Engineering problem. I dont think they lack talents either. And their biggest problem isn't design. It is their culture, and I would argue a lack of focus and direction.
vinay427 11y ago
Do we really need to apply ageism here? This industry (and especially software engineering) already has enough problems related to it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - askafriend 11y ago
    Just stop.
sawyerjhood 11y ago
I didn't notice the navbar until you pointed it out, it does look oddly out of place.

jchendy 11y ago

Is there anything new here? This site was all over the tech news last year when it was released, but I can't tell what, if anything, has changed now.

thothsscribe 11y ago
They recently updated their design thinking process. Pretty much the same thing, but more focused on iterative approaches?

fakhar50 11y ago

this is nice

neurobashing 11y ago

I note Apple products featured quite prominently.

jchendy 11y ago
Possibly related to this: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for-huge-expansive-enterprise-push/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for...
jhallenworld 11y ago
I like the DEC PDP-8 shown on "Machines in motion", sitting on top of the IBM tape drive. All modern computers are boring :-)

butu5 11y ago

Even though IBM doesn't seems very sexy startup. But they survived 100+ years and trying to find way to stay in business. They learn and adapt. They contribute significantly to Open Source. Now they are understanding importance of UI/UX design and trying to invest heavily on it. Lot of big name startup even though succeed for short or medium term but struggling a lot in long run. I really enjoy reading the below book about IBM Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V., Jr. Gerstner (Outsider came to IBM as CEO) IBM is nearly in verge of collapse during early 90s. And he pulled it off. http://www.amazon.com/Who-Says-Elephants-Cant-Dance/dp/0060523808 http://www.amazon.com/Who-Says-Elephants-Cant-Dance/dp/00605...

arrty88 11y ago
I would like to see IBM release something similar to Material Design / Bootstrap - that is home grown from their own design experts.
- mhsenkow 11y ago
  >_<....you should read the site more.
- jchendy 11y ago
  Material and Bootstrap are very different, so I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but FWIW, IBM does have some resources available, including what appears to be working code in the "animation library" https://www.ibm.com/design/language/resources https://www.ibm.com/design/language/resources
  - makeitso_or_not 11y ago
    Yup, the IBM Design Language is a growing library/guidelines for all new IBM Designed products. Still a work in progress, but there is finally a unified look/feel/function for future apps/sites.
mchahn 11y ago
> But they survived 100+ years and trying to find way to stay in business. They haven't had to try too hard to find they way. They sold to big business 100 years ago and they still do today. The fact that computers became prominent in smaller businesses doesn't change their success with the biggest.

andreastt 11y ago

96 HTTP requests, totaling 5406.72 KB, in 12.87 seconds. Maybe good design for print, but certainly not for web.

grp 11y ago
I was going to say it works like a charm with javascript disabled, but it's just broken fast!

fallingmeat 11y ago

Hey IBM, instead of just telling us you care, how about actually creating a delightful experience for ClearCase, ClearQuest or DOORS. I guess it's easier to simply say "Design" 37 times on a static site, maybe add some bright colors, people of 'diverse' background and a hoodie for effect. Nailed it!

ritchiea 11y ago
Doesn't it seem like they're trying to do that by announcing they're hiring designers?
thothsscribe 11y ago
IBM has hundreds, if not thousands, of products that they own and maintain. Understand that the research for a design, designing it, and then developing it takes months to years to accomplish. IBM won't be able to update all of their products, but they will work on the ones that they can and then carry design consideration to all new products. Thats all a company can do. Same goes for Microsoft, Google, etc. IBM is a bit late to the game is their only issue. Also consider, how are they going to get designers/people who care about design if they don't advertise it first. Yes there are products that need work, but to fix that issue they need to say Design 37 and more times just to get the attention of the right people. I am sure in your line of work as well, things don't just happen immediately because you want it to and sometimes to solve one problem you need to solve two or three others first.
- fallingmeat 11y ago
  ok agreed. hope it works!

deleted 11y ago

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rfreytag 11y ago

Please be cautious when considering working for or with IBM. IBM's poor treatment of employees and customers is widely reported. Do your own research. For example, Cringely has a book outlining IBM's problems: http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/ He has many posts in the same vein (note dates in the URLs): * http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/11/wheres-the-beef-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2016/01/11/wheres-the-beef-ibm/ * http://www.cringely.com/2015/07/21/ibm-is-so-screwed/ http://www.cringely.com/2015/07/21/ibm-is-so-screwed/ * http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/ http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/ * http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-next-week/ http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/27/fix-ibm/ * http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/21/ginni-comes-senses-late-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/21/ginni-comes-senses-late-i... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/12/ibms-power8-servers-less-meets-eye/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/10/12/ibms-power8-servers-less-... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/25/fed-suckered-ibm-failing-cloud-strategy/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/25/fed-suckered-ibm-failing-... * http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/16/ibm-apple-just-big-deal/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/07/16/ibm-apple-just-big-deal/ * http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/15/ibm-back-ussr/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/15/ibm-back-ussr/ * http://www.cringely.com/2014/01/23/ibm-sells-intel-server-business-company-doomed/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/01/23/ibm-sells-intel-server-bu... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/07/fulfilling-customer-requirements-is-a-weapon-at-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/08/07/fulfilling-customer-requi... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/25/the-new-ibm-vampires-in-our-midst/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/07/25/the-new-ibm-vampires-in-o... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-hand-is-staining-my-window/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-han... * http://www.cringely.com/2013/04/22/the-decline-fall-of-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2013/04/22/the-decline-fall-of-ibm/ ...and many older columns. See the comment by slantedview in these comments for another example. Cringely isn't the only one offering serious criticisms of IBM: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=problems+at+ibm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=pro...

rdtsc 11y ago
Regardless of what happens with IBM, this sounds like someone with a chip on his shoulder. He wrote a book about how bad it is, then blogs about it. It is like someone who got out of a relationship (didn't he work there?), but then keeps obsessing and talking to everyone else about it for 10 years after.

kwahyaj 11y ago

They just released a new Design Thinking framework, it's pretty interesting and worth a look. https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/ https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/

slantedview 11y ago

IBM is truly owe of the most loathsome tech companies in our industry. They have a long record of treating their employees horribly. Many people I know have been laid off at IBM and made to train their (foreign) replacements. One person I know has worked for IBM 3 times (twice through acquisitions) and was laid off all 3 times! Please keep this stuff in mind as a contrast to their flashy new marketing.

thothsscribe 11y ago
So IBM just happened to target the same guy three times? Not disagreeing that IBM has had issues with hiring/firing, but three times seems like an insane coincidence.
rdtsc 11y ago
They have to. It is part of the strategy and how it can manage to stay alfoat. At some point software consulting business was big so they had consultants for big projects. Then I don't know cloud got bit, so now what should they do, keep hoards of consults on payroll as a jobs program like TSA? Maybe retrain them? The fastest and easiest way it so lay them off. At some point I've heard they sold cheese slicers. They probaby had experts in that. What should they do when the market situation changes? Keep selling and hiring more people in that area or lay them off.

yarou 11y ago

IBM is largely a relic from a bygone era. You know, the era where people of color didn't exist and women were largely relegated to secretarial roles. I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM. When an executive was asked why this was so, they replied that: "the coffee is free, because it will make our engineers more productive." IBM, not even once.

jldugger 11y ago
> I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM. I work for the State of Oregon. It's pretty much illegal to give employees free food without a business justification. Buying my own snacks and coffee is the default, and not a huge deal; I'd rather have money to spend as I deem fit than more calories. Complaining about not having a mini fridge full of Red Bull and a cabinet stocked with Doritos is a great way to make yourself look tone deaf and selfish when the vast, vast majority of American society doesn't have these fringe benefits. Far, far worse is the series of things IBM's been doing to benefits. They've shifted the 401k match to the end of the year, so you have to survive any layoffs and stack ranking system to earn your contribution. Early retirement has been slashed from 6 months pay to 1 month.
- jeoffw 11y ago
  IBM 401k did move matching to the end of the year. I was annoyed about that too until I realized that Google employees only get 50% matching on their contributions, capped at $8250. Meanwhile, IBM contributes 1% automatically and matches 100% of your contributions up to 5% of pay. IBM's 401k benefit is easily verifiable: http://www-01.ibm.com/services/socomm/shared/pdf/IBM401PlusPlanBrochure.pdf http://www-01.ibm.com/services/socomm/shared/pdf/IBM401PlusP... Google no longer lists their 401k benefit publicly, but there is this: https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-Googles-employee-401k-matching https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-Googles-employee-401k-...
boxidea 11y ago
I work for a large not-for-profit company. We don't get any free snacks or coffee free here either, but the other benefits outweigh that... like 10% 401a contribution, $30 per month commuter benefit, and $25k tuition reimbursement per year. Coffee and snacks aren't everything. And honestly they're not much.

adventurousocto 11y ago

I was hired as one of the product designers in the winter class of 2015 and love my job. It’s not smooth sailing but it is also my first job out of college and it is incredibly rewarding to see the kind of impact you can have on shipped products and also really inspiring to see a 100 year old company trying to change from the inside out. We have an amazing culture in the design studio and I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else right now.