Financial shenanigans started with Palmisano's predecessor, Lou Gerstner, the first outside IBM CEO. Reading about IBM CEOs, before and after Gerstner, the CEO

Financial shenanigans started with Palmisano's predecessor, Lou Gerstner, the first outside IBM CEO. Reading about IBM CEOs, before and after Gerstner, the CEO was an IBM-lifer who came up through sales/marketing. Though Gina Rometty started in tech-related area at IBM. The current CEO has the deepest tech background of any IBM CEO. The company has pivoted towards cloud, esp. hybrid cloud. IBM has exited many hardware/software segments to concentrate on consulting and being the goto for outsourced IT departments since the dot-com crash. They've tried goosing sales by touting AI a couple times before the current wave - Deep Blue and Watson, which didn't have much long term impact revenue-wise. They've gone after the cloud, esp. hybrid cloud, with recent acquisitions, esp. RedHat.