Those flagship projects that failed technologically were amazing successes. > received copious media praise That's the success criteria. IBM makes money in

Those flagship projects that failed technologically were amazing successes. > received copious media praise That's the success criteria. IBM makes money in lots of ways. The last few decades they've struggled with public perception, and an image of being "has-been". This has hurt their ability to get talent and enter new markets. Having your name next to neat, futuristic tech is a good way to counter that image. Even more so when it's things like Watson and Quantum computing that have real nerds doing actual fawning over the tech.