Re: The Future of IBM ..

This has been the general IBM path for a big bunch of years. It started the moment they began divesting of real estate and various divisions that produce 'stuff' instead focusing on groups that produce 'billable hours.'

If you payed attention do the all the stuff about IBM 100 they even pointed out how in many areas they had corporate rules in place eventually made it into law. They were way ahead of the rest of the country and most of the world. It was common to see folks that spent entire careers at IBM.

WE on this list know that if IBM were to break it's own internal rules that say "All servers are equal" and instead truly focus on the sale of IBM i and Power Systems they would own the data center. But while in the long term this would be GREAT for IBM it would wreak havoc on their consulting revenue and hurt stockholder return. But the company is focused only on immediate stock holder return.

On a very much smaller scale I worked for a company that did exactly that and during the time that was the focus it nearly killed them. The biggest problem was that we couldn't do ANY 'long term' contracts having to do the short term stuff to generate revenue NOW. This of course pissed off the customers that were being put off and off and stripping the backlog of all the short term stuff. Eventually there weren't enough short term things left to do and revenue was in serious trouble. So they outsourced some functions selling the dies that went with that but then completely losing control of that function. While the scale is fabulously different the parallels between that company and IBM are very similar.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com
www.iInTheCloud.com

On 6/26/2013 10:15 PM, Jon Paris wrote:

Several folks told me I should post this here - so here it is: http://www.cringely.com/2013/06/20/ibm-to-customers-your-hand-is-staining-my-window/

If you haven't already read it I will warn you it will make you sad - homicidal - or both. Saddest part? It is very difficult to argue with a single point he makes.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com