I worked there in the late 1990's. I was in research division (writing Notes applications) and they were doing better after the downturn in the early 90s. The

I worked there in the late 1990's. I was in research division (writing Notes applications) and they were doing better after the downturn in the early 90s. They spent billions on research (some hardware research like chips/ some software research). The little nub that think pads use was invented in that building. Global Services (the consulting arm) was the rising division. The talk inside was the new CEO (Gerstner[1]) was leveraging IBM's size rather than the previous plan to break it into pieces and was somewhat successful at it. I left to go back to grad school. And I think the new management went back to the "this is too big and unmanageable, its worth more broken up" mindset. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_V._Gerstner_Jr.