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A behemoth like IBM takes a while to die. I've read a bit about IBM. They are toast, the market for mainframes, server racks and expensive enterprise service pa
by banku_brougham 10y ago
A behemoth like IBM takes a while to die. I've read a bit about IBM. They are toast, the market for mainframes, server racks and expensive enterprise service packages is disappearing.
- notaharvardmba 10y agoExcept watson, patents, their financing arm, 99 year contracts with governments globally...
- josh2600 10y ago... Have you ever tried to use Watson for anything? The aspect of dying is a forward looking thought which presumes that growth has ceased within the organization and the best they can do is to maintain their current state. I think that's a fairly accurate depiction of IBM's business although the recent performance notes I've seen of the Power chipset with PG_SQL are pretty encouraging.
- ReedJessen 10y agoI estimate about 60% of IBMs patents are invalid after the recent Alice v. CLS Bank decision. Just no one has call them out on it yet.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bbody 10y agoRead history, whenever an industry gets too distasteful for IBM they sell it. E.g. Desktops/Laptops and more recently servers to Lenovo. The products might be supported by a lot of services, a mainframe might not be cheap but nor are mainframe consultants. A lot of large corporates still use mainframes and some probably have no plans to get rid of them. Edit: Grammar mistake
- jalopy 10y agoIBM is a master at reinvention. They regularly discard unprofitable businesses and expand into profitable ones. In 2014, they disposed of businesses representing $7b in revenue but -$500m in profit. Managing to the future by getting rid of the dead weight is the only way you can survive to be a 100+ year old company in the technology space.