IBM needs to widen its market

Outside of the classic 200-300 customers (mostly mainframe), IBM is largely irrelevant. Somethings that's a lack of competitive and compelling products (ok a lot of the time), but it's also because the company has exactly zero clue how to scale down and sell outside of the ELA financial sleight of hand that most of the revenue comes from.

I totally agree with the OP. This is something our leadership has to consider if they want the company to survive in the long run. Originally posted by @VMj4z64-vct on another thread

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@2sta agree 100%

2sta. I couldn’t agree more. I have said this in the past and will summarize again

Replace the CEO, board, and at least 1/2 of the executive management team. Aim for 7 layers of management from top to bottom
Sell off, IP off, or spin off everything that is non-strategic. I estimate IBM India, DASD, outsourcing, social, Power scale out, non-essential legacy, etc etc. NET NET the company resizes around Z, enterprise Power, cognitive, AI, strategic initiatives that make money, cloud, blockchain, and yes even hybrid. I believe that should slim down IBM by 20-25 billion while leaving approx 55-60 billion
Use the 20-25 billion to reinvest perhaps buy Redhat and it’s CEO (he seems to understand LINUX and strategic, in addition to cognitive, AI, and cloud. Even better he seems to know how to pick a board, and grow a company PLUS he is the right age. Let him replace the board, and the executive management team
Return IBM to growth and investments that will result in long term shareholder value. This bleeding from a thousand financial engineering games cuts has got to stop. Everyone, and I mean everyone has seen through the financial engineering games, and realizes IBM is going no where under the current CEO, board, and exec management

They don't have to go consumer to be successful. They do have to invest in product development (stop wasting money on stock buybacks) and more importantly acquisitions because DB2 was the last successful ground-up development effort. IBM can't build commercially viable products anymore - they're at best mediocre at iterating on small features. They need to shed unprofitable or dying businesses (SO and Social come to mind) and focus on areas that can grow. Most of all they need a new CEO from the outside and a completely new board focused on growing the company instead of becoming the next broadcom acquisition target.

Alexa, why did IBM decide to go B2B only?

IBM lost the Consumer Market the day they sold their PC business to Lenovo. You'd THINK Ginni and her Minions would have used some of the available cash to cater to this market. That unfortunately would require thought, sight and management with vision.

Thread regarding IBM layoffs

IBM needs to widen its market

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