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Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

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Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#2
I'd really like to see IBMers talk about the past, present, and future of the company. It looks pretty pale to me.

Back in the Thinkpad era, IBM had a lot of cool stuff going on. But now it seems like a shadow.

Watson and IBM cloud look like flops. The email fiasco is weird and should never have happened.

What did buying Red Hat accomplish? As an outsider, it doesn't seem to have infused any new ideas, and the changes to centos just made people move further away AFAIK.

Or buying stuff like the Weather Channel?

The chip business looks promising. Maybe IBM should double down there?

Consulting, in general, seems to not be a great tool to sharpen internal capability. The constant layoffs of the past have also had a hugely deleterious effect.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#4

An email migration was that important that they decided to shake up quite a bit of the exec team? Or was the email migration stuff just internal politics playing out in the news?

Email migration? I haven’t been following IBM very closely but a quick google search failed me here.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#5
post #4

An email migration was that important that they decided to shake up quite a bit of the exec team? Or was the email migration stuff just internal politics playing out in the news?

Email migration? I haven’t been following IBM very closely but a quick google search failed me here.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/30/ibm_email_outage/

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#6
I like Whitehurst and have had the chance to meet him a few times. If you want to understand his ethos check out "The Open Organization". It details his transition from Delta to Red Hat and the transformation of his leadership style being around a lot of smart engineers and team players ready to constructively challenge each other. Good read for anyone interested in building inclusive company culture in tech.

Honestly, I thought IBM would be feel less rudderless with him at the helm. I wanted IBM to become more 'red' and not RH to become more 'big blue'- but it appears this isn't the case after all... seems like a short tenure.

Anyone know more about the new leadership?

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#7
post #2

I'd really like to see IBMers talk about the past, present, and future of the company. It looks pretty pale to me. Back in the Thinkpad era, IBM had a lot of cool stuff going on. But now it seems like a shadow. Watson and IBM cloud look like flops. The email fiasco is weird and should never have happened. What did buying Red Hat accomplish? As an outsider, it doesn't seem to have infused any new ideas, and the change…

>What did buying Red Hat accomplish? As an outsider, it doesn't seem to have infused any new ideas, and the changes to centos just made people move further away AFAIK.

I am not an IBMer though have worked with many former IBM folks, and work with Red Hat on and off every month or so. From what I've gathered, Red Hat is the new core of IBM. The goal is to grow Red Hat, specifically their OpenShift offering (which is huge in gov't as it allows for hybrid clouds), and make centre the biz around that then the "traditional" IBM consulting style.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#8
post #4

An email migration was that important that they decided to shake up quite a bit of the exec team? Or was the email migration stuff just internal politics playing out in the news?

Email migration? I haven’t been following IBM very closely but a quick google search failed me here.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/30/ibm_email_outage

TLDR: due to a bad email migration, IBM has had massive email issues. Even the representative for the company had to give the statement to the press over the phone.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#10
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email migration? I haven’t been following IBM very closely but a quick google search failed me here.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/30/ibm_email_outage/

(Thanks; I was searching under the CEO’s name and not IBM for some dumb reason; I blame lack of coffee.)

Whoa.

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