141–150 of 235 posts
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By far the biggest software fuckup in Canada's history.
Nah, don't forget Target's SAP migration
https://www.canadianbusiness.com/the-last-days-of-target-can...
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IBM portfolio isn't targeted to consumers like Apple's or other companies, even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. The only consumer facing product they had for the longest time were cash registers, and those aren't particularly hip as to live in consumer imagination Edit: in today episode, hacker news forget they're a niche cohort.
> cash registers Don't you mean NCR, even in light of what IBM did for cash registers?
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Anyone have any insight on why Red Hat sold their soul?
The decision was in the hands of a board whose sole legal goal, these days, is securing maximal financial return for shareholders (and the shareholders agreed -- there was an explicit vote). A soul is a luxury that companies don't usually get to keep past IPO.
That said, if someone makes an offer for a public company, the board does pretty much need to put it to a shareholder vote although they can negotiate for a higher price and ultimately make a recommendation. But it's up to the shareholders. They're the ones that own the company.
I thought Jim was going to be the next CEO.
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probably not. IBM haven't been that much relevant in tech for years. they pivot to the cut throat consulting services while kind of abandoned what IBM used to be. a tech leader. Microsoft was like IBM after Bill Gates. Not a tech leader for many years until Microsoft pivot to Cloud computing and software as services.
Microsoft was not like IBM after Bill Gates. Not remotely close. Microsoft was still overwhelmingly a product company in the decade after Gates. It did not abandon its product-centric focus and switch to a service-centric business model ala IBM. IBM hasn't been a product heavy company in several decades at this point. Microsoft never stopped being product heavy. IBM liquidated its core product businesses, one after a…
One of my recent revelations was when I told my teen children "... a company like IBM". To what they said "what is IBM??" They know all the large tech companies but that one was a surprise to them, they had a look at Wikipedia and said "ah yes, it was a great company in your times". Time to get some wine.
It definitely felt like an "old" company even then. I remember they were very big on patents and were proud of the fact that they had a huge patent war chest.
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... because FAANG was about compensation and MS is not competitive (at least for mid-career hires). Take a look at levels 62 / 63 at MS vs. comparable roles at FAANGs: https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Amazon,Google,Facebook,Micro...
I won't pretend to understand how these levels compare, but it looks on par with Apple, no? My understanding of FANG initially was that it was about tech stock performance and not compensation.
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> leadership style being around a lot of smart engineers [...] building inclusive company culture in tech. Red Hat was certainly an open company. I don't know if "inclusive" is the right word though. "Inclusive" has strong connotations now of people being welcoming, especially of those that are different. This is largely anecdotal, but my interactions with Red Hat and external observations can better be summed up as…
As someone who spent 8 years inside Red Hat, this is exactly why anecdotal "evidence" is garbage. Complaining that an engineering company is full of mostly white males (in an industry which is full of mostly white mails) is an example of nothing. Red Hat started programs to push LGBTQ+ people in 2014, women in leadership in 2017, neurodiversity acceptance in 2018, black leadership in 2018. You may think all of those…
For sensitive issues, it's hard to imagine this will lead to a constructive, curious conversation. It would be interesting, for example, if you and the GP tried to examine why you have such different experiences? Maybe you were in different places, working for different people, and saw different things? Maybe different job descriptions? The world is always much bigger than what we imagine.
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IBM portfolio isn't targeted to consumers like Apple's or other companies, even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name. The only consumer facing product they had for the longest time were cash registers, and those aren't particularly hip as to live in consumer imagination Edit: in today episode, hacker news forget they're a niche cohort.
> even at peak IBM it was an office name, not a household name IBM was synonymous with PC for quite some time.
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probably not. IBM haven't been that much relevant in tech for years. they pivot to the cut throat consulting services while kind of abandoned what IBM used to be. a tech leader. Microsoft was like IBM after Bill Gates. Not a tech leader for many years until Microsoft pivot to Cloud computing and software as services.
Microsoft was not like IBM after Bill Gates. Not remotely close. Microsoft was still overwhelmingly a product company in the decade after Gates. It did not abandon its product-centric focus and switch to a service-centric business model ala IBM. IBM hasn't been a product heavy company in several decades at this point. Microsoft never stopped being product heavy. IBM liquidated its core product businesses, one after a…