I know many wish to see IBM reclaim its place on the top but that's not going to happen any time soon. Not unless we get new leadership that's once again going to focus on growth instead of shrinking the company and getting rid of the top talent in constant attempts to cut costs. And that'll happen when hell freezes over.
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Executive leadership is a retirement home. These folks only care about the next 3-5 years until they cash out. That’s why you don’t see any innovation. Executive leadership is k–ling the company.
when was the last time you saw ibm make great strides to gain new markets? Getting into a new market means investing: big no-no from bean counters because they need money to pay for dividends and stock buy-backs. It requires good strategic foresight and excellent execution, which is hard to find among the ranks of senior execs. They bet on watson health but now it's been sold for sc-ap. All you can see is conceding markets in the name of focusing on high margin business. Now it's down to the last pony, the z mainframes. Hope it will last a little longer, till the current crop of senior execs retire.
Can't have true infinite growth on a finite planet... this is a fixation of Wall Street... sustainability means homeostasis.
So at some point it all becomes a smoke & mirrors numbers game.
But this is a long (and generally considered) heretical discussion, LOL!
That said, growth is in the areas IBM traditionally hasn't played in, but rather the places the FAANG companies basically grew up in.
The failure was to realize the potential back when the FAANG's were small... and to have used IBM's then dominance... to take those markets over.
Where’s the Growth? In Palmisano’s and Rometty’s bank accounts. The modern days Bonnie and Clyde!
IBM has plenty of growth within their internal bloat teams.
Mainframe is a monopoly in the same way that vacuum tubes are a monopoly. If we're betting on Z as our secret weapon, heaven help us.
Not only that, he’s the one actually pulling the strings behind BvK now GR has gone.
He must know where ALL the skeletons are really buried.
And he is still at IBM and in a higher position. Just so wrong. That company is a joke
https://www.theregister.com/2000/11/29/ibm_exec_accused_of_insider/
Now you are catching on Every cloud player exploits their monopoly pricing power Google (search), Microsoft (Windows), Amazon (first mover). IBM’s pricing power is in mainframe. IBM has pricing power there, so expect Hybrid cloud to lean quite heavily on mainframe. Now add in that most customers want to deal with one throat to choke, and IBM will exploit the commodity pieces around mainframe to command higher than commodity pricing for the remaining work needed. It will not be a large “higher” price, but it will be enough to have a complete offering around mainframe, and hopefully e able to expand into other pieces of the cloud infrastructure.
Management made it clear we are in the high profit business. Once clients start signing up for the Hybrid Cloud and then IBM cheap out with low skill/experience offshoring we'll see what happens next. With the way the company is run today, I don't see any long term success.
Look at the filings. GR definitely has the most...then the CEO and then the current CFO
We can still cut costs by sacking many more useless VPs & GMs. One employees don't need so many dotted reporting chains.
How do you know he’s the largest shareholder?
That’ll happen when the real leader of the company (spoiler alert: it’s the CFO) is changed.
It’s a bit perverse when the CFO is almost the largest shareholder in the whole company, milking the dividend every year.