Apple, Google, and Netflix are consumer-facing entities- most people in the western world are customers of at least one of these companies. IBM does not sell to consumers, so you generally don't hear about "life-improving" things from them, since they don't really need to advertise or compete that way.
Exactly. They're not consumer facing. But I do think that selling off ThinkPads hurts their image as their logo is no longer on devices. Last time I saw an IBM logo on a device was at T.J.Maxx on the cash register that looked very dated.