Re: The Future of IBM ..

[DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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