
I, Cringely What's happening at IBM (it's dying) - protomyth
http://www.cringely.com/2016/03/08/whats-happening-at-ibm/
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dharmon
My god, I usually ignore articles like these, but does anyone actually listen
to this idiot? I remember reading his IBM articles in the past, and he has
such a personal beef with them he seems incapable of rational thought. I don't
even know where to begin.

1) There is a disconnect between how happy engineers are and the performance
of the company. Sorry, but its true. Just because people are getting laid off
does necessarily mean the company is doomed; we need more information.

2) For his "citation", he links to a Seeking Alpha article, which openly
admits they are bearish on IBM, then mentions how Buffett hedges on comments
on his IBM position. Buffett _never_ prescribes stock positions to people, and
he's not going to start now. He _always_ says things like, "well, I may be
wrong..." and the like.

3) If we really want to know how IBM will do, we have to look at what we know,
and what we know is, a) there are significant governments and companies
(financial institutions and more) that want / need the custom offerings IBM
has, and are not switching anytime soon. This provides a floor on earnings. b)
Microsoft is their only real cloud competitor. Amazon is only just now getting
some big-time corporate clients, and these are still mostly tech players, and
Google is so far behind its not worth mentioning. Hybrid solutions are a must-
have for many clients.

4) Just with these considerations, IBM will be fine. Watson is promising, but
nobody at this point knows how this will play out.

IBM may (probably?) not return to its huge glory days, but that doesn't mean
its doomed. Come on, folks. This guy reads like a TechCrunch intern.

~~~
hackaflocka
> does anyone actually listen to this idiot?

Nobody.

He's had brief episodes of luck with a movie, and an interview with Steve
Jobs. And that's it.

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pgodzin
My impression is that Cringely is far more cynical of IBM than others. Still,
the outlook for IBM proper doesn't look great. However, as a new grad joining
Watson, how do those prospects look? Will IBM's issues effect me even within a
division they are heavily investing in? Would love to get some feedback from
current/former IBMers.

