4 ms·

Desperate to meet that EPS number for the 2015 roadmap, apparently.

• x0x0 12y ago
  This whole thing reeks of financial engineering; playing games shifting numbers from one bucket to another. After all, if ibm still needs chips -- and they're paying $1.5B, plus a 10 year contract -- how does really make sense?
  • frankchn 12y ago
    Perhaps IBM figured that they don't need that many chips to warrant its own fab, which are expensive to maintain/upgrade to keep up with cutting edge process technologies. I can believe that it made more financial sense for someone else to actually make the chips it wants (like nVidia, Apple and almost everyone else besides Intel and Samsung) than running its own fab in the long run due to economies of scale involved in fabs.
  • snsr 12y ago
    You might enjoy Robert Cringely's recent book (essay?) on the decline and slow-motion failure of IBM - http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/ http://www.cringely.com/2014/06/04/decline-fall-ibm/
  • cylinder 12y ago
    Look at HP, which has taken a divestment / restructuring charge basically every year for a long time, each time labeling it a one-off thing. Financial "engineering" is rampant all across listed American companies.