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Could IBM turn itself into a generic tech consultancy? Accenture & co. seem to be doing fine.

by Aqwis 12y ago

jeffreyrogers 12y ago
Accenture's market cap is 1/3 of IBMs currently however, so management probably isn't too interested in that route.
tg3 12y ago
A large portion of their business already is. I wouldn't be surprised if this layoff was in part shedding the non-consultancy parts of their business.
cbd1984 12y ago
> Could IBM turn itself into a generic tech consultancy? Not that anyone necessarily cares, per se, but if they do this, what happens to the companies invested in platforms like System z that only IBM can really support? Does "generic tech consultancy" include developing and supporting proprietary hardware and software?
- hueving 12y ago
  They would probably stop developing it in that case and just support remaining customers.
- kyllo 12y ago
  Enter the multitude of companies whose entire business model is selling products that emulate IBM platforms on top of commodity UNIX hardware and RDBMS.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > Enter the multitude of companies whose entire business model is selling products that emulate IBM platforms on top of commodity UNIX hardware and RDBMS. As I understand it, the big selling point of Big Iron has always been the idea that it's more stable at the hardware level than other kinds of computer. Is that actually true? If it is, can a company get similar uptime with non-Big Iron hardware? Because it seems like that would be a hard prerequisite for replacing those systems.
    - kyllo 12y ago
      If that were still true I don't think virtualization would have caught on to the extent that it has. I work in a pretty conservative business that used to run everything on IBM and then HP mainframes but has since migrated to commodity x86 hardware running VMWare. Downtimes do happen but modern monitoring and deployment processes can address them quickly and cheaply.
johansch 12y ago
I had a look at the 2013 annual report. This is the simplified division of revenue: Services: 57% Software: 26% Systems & Technology: 14% Financing 2% (http://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2013/bin/assets/2013_ibm_annual.pdf http://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2013/bin/assets/2013_ibm_ann... - page 37)
adventured 12y ago
Accenture isn't exactly killing it. They're suffering from the same problem IBM is: the global economy sorta sucks. Accenture has averaged 3.x% sales 'growth' in the last two fiscal years. Account for inflation, and they're lucky if they're not contracting as a business.

Could IBM turn itself into a generic tech consultancy? Accenture & co. seem to be doing fine.

by Aqwis 12y ago

Could IBM turn itself into a generic tech consultancy? Accenture & co. seem to be doing fine.

jeffreyrogers 12y ago

Accenture's market cap is 1/3 of IBMs currently however, so management probably isn't too interested in that route.

tg3 12y ago

A large portion of their business already is. I wouldn't be surprised if this layoff was in part shedding the non-consultancy parts of their business.

cbd1984 12y ago

> Could IBM turn itself into a generic tech consultancy? Not that anyone necessarily cares, per se, but if they do this, what happens to the companies invested in platforms like System z that only IBM can really support? Does "generic tech consultancy" include developing and supporting proprietary hardware and software?

hueving 12y ago
They would probably stop developing it in that case and just support remaining customers.
kyllo 12y ago
Enter the multitude of companies whose entire business model is selling products that emulate IBM platforms on top of commodity UNIX hardware and RDBMS.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > Enter the multitude of companies whose entire business model is selling products that emulate IBM platforms on top of commodity UNIX hardware and RDBMS. As I understand it, the big selling point of Big Iron has always been the idea that it's more stable at the hardware level than other kinds of computer. Is that actually true? If it is, can a company get similar uptime with non-Big Iron hardware? Because it seems like that would be a hard prerequisite for replacing those systems.
  - kyllo 12y ago
    If that were still true I don't think virtualization would have caught on to the extent that it has. I work in a pretty conservative business that used to run everything on IBM and then HP mainframes but has since migrated to commodity x86 hardware running VMWare. Downtimes do happen but modern monitoring and deployment processes can address them quickly and cheaply.

johansch 12y ago

I had a look at the 2013 annual report. This is the simplified division of revenue: Services: 57% Software: 26% Systems & Technology: 14% Financing 2% (http://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2013/bin/assets/2013_ibm_annual.pdf http://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2013/bin/assets/2013_ibm_ann... - page 37)

adventured 12y ago

Accenture isn't exactly killing it. They're suffering from the same problem IBM is: the global economy sorta sucks. Accenture has averaged 3.x% sales 'growth' in the last two fiscal years. Account for inflation, and they're lucky if they're not contracting as a business.