Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President • Hacker News Board

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#151

Post by wolverine876 » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:26 PM UTC

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #28

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.

IBM doesn't make consumer products, as they did in decades past. I would imagine there are a lot of successful technology companies without a consumer side that your kids aren't familiar with. Booz Allen?

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#152

Post by avereveard » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #73

avereveard wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As far as I'm concerned, the term "PC" comes from the "IBM PC"[1] > " The PC was IBM's first attempt to sell a computer through retail channels [...] they partnered with the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears Roebuck " > " Reception was overwhelmingly positive [...] the IBM PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry.[38] Dealers were overwhelmed with orders [...] By the time the machine was shi…

> It is worth noting how small the market was at the time though, "In 1983 they sold more than 750,000 machines" - Apple has just passed 100,000,000 iPhone 12s in six months since launch.

which is the goddamn point. it was a name in tech circles, and this community forgets how small tech circles were back then

heck, someone even cited the cell processor in playstation. outside the nerdiest of gamers, very few actually cared, and the name that stuck and resonated from that item was playstation, not ibm anyway.

want some name that public would recognize in the 80s? try nintendo and sega.

>>>> I told my teen children "... a company like IBM". To what they said "what is IBM??"

kid back then would have had the same reaction as the gp kids at hearing ibm.

this community is completely out of touch and filled with vitriol.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#153

Post by ghaff » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:29 PM UTC

mech422 wrote: post #97

avereveard wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a time when pc weren't household items, that came about quite later

PC's were big in the 80s, and 'PC' meant IBM PC (or clone). The rest of us had 'commodore's or 'atari's - we didn't have 'pc's. It was also the heyday of computer magazine's from PC shopper to DDJ and Compute! Computers weren't as unknown back then as people like to think.. So I'd argue IBM was a household name as far back as the mid-80s.

Much longer ago than that. I'm quite certain that long before there even was an IBM PC and almost certainly before I touched an IBM Selectric, I would have known IBM as a computer company. If someone in the 1960s had been asked to name a computer company, they would have named IBM and I'm not talking about nerdy niche audiences.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#154

Post by Ryder123 » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #138

spitfire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exception to this rule was NeXT purchasing Apple for negative $400 million. Most of the NeXT senior staff (jabs, avi, etc) Went on to take over roles at Apple. They also brought in all the NeXT technology and threw out Apples' Nextstep/Openstep->Mac OSX

They were acquired by their old boss so less of a culture clash and no need for turf wars between opposing sides.

Steve Jobs had been gone for 12 years, there was plenty of culture clash and turf wars. Steve just managed to prevail.

When he returned, the workforce was pampered and attached to projects that weren't going anywhere. Steve removed a number of perks, and killed some of the biggest, most internally popular projects (Newton and OpenDoc come to mind). Lot's of people left.

But Steve came back to Apple as a savvy politician. He managed to get the board of directors in his back pocket, and sell his vision of Apple to the employees. Those that stayed, stayed because they came to believe in his vision, not because he placated them.

I will say this though, I think there's a truth underneath your statement. Apple attracted people who wanted to change the world. The culture may have been different, but there was still a core motivation in Apple employees that came from Steve's original vision of computing.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#155

Post by sidcool » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:31 PM UTC

nomoreplease wrote: post #36

When I talk to former IBMers (including a VP), it seems much of the outward “success” there is financial engineering, yet the business is crumbling in reality. Jim leaving amidst a chaotic, failed email migration that is impacting sales is not surprising

Can you shed some more light on email migration? What was it about and why did it fail?

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#156

Post by geodel » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:32 PM UTC

thedougd wrote: post #94

echelon wrote: 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…

IBM once had a deep, deep bench of engineering talent and squandered it away. They failed to maintain the engineering culture while making many strategic mistakes (cloud). Starting in the late 2000s and early 10s, executives were crying for 'cloud skills' as part of their continuous 'workforce remix'. Did Amazon build AWS by hiring cloud skills? Of course not. You build a cloud with a wide array of talent including h…

True. I remember in that big data hustle in last decade, some morons were claiming that Google is facing problem in hiring Hadoop talent. Imagine that!

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#157

Post by odiroot » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

dvh wrote: post #107

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #28

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.

The "I" in FAANG stands for IBM

IBM should definitely have a place there. Netflix is the one that's not like the others.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#158

Post by gonehome » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #143

rst wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sole? No. No matter how many times people repeat it. Or, at least, companies can and do spend money on things that can be argued to be in service of the long-term profit and image of the company. Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving? 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 a…

This is why I'm in favor of founder controlled shares (Founder's Fund companies tend to do this - Zuckerberg at FB).

Founder's retain total voting control of the company and can do what they think is in the best interest of the company.

The board can complain and vote against it in favor of stupid short-term decisions that harm in the company, but in the end Zuck can tell them to fuck off and buy instagram because he thinks it's the right thing to do.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#159

Post by kingsuper20 » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #104

kingsuper20 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Back in the Thinkpad era, IBM had a lot of cool stuff going on. But now it seems like a shadow. I remember their stuff from the pre-Thinkpad era. Quite a company. Working for both a large competitor and for a small company that was trying to sell to them they seemed clumsy but still had an amazing portfolio. My guess is that they just need to merge/break-up/reconfigure into oblivion. Just another AT&T/HP/ITT/Polaroi…

Having worked at one of those that also did business with IBM, I felt there was an ethos I observed in the upper ranks that is hard to describe. It was like they felt they were better than others, had large egos about their brand and had a certain stuffiness to them where they knew what was right because it was them. Like a business book/MBA club of sorts. Kinda hard to describe it. Anyhow I wonder if this better-tha…

When I had to deal with some small tendril of IBM, I think the anti-trust suit was still in the works. It probably scarred their dealings with other companies to the same degree that their dominance did.

Re: Jim Whitehurst to step down as IBM President

#160

Post by ghaff » Fri, Jul 02, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #158

ghaff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sole? No. No matter how many times people repeat it. Or, at least, companies can and do spend money on things that can be argued to be in service of the long-term profit and image of the company. Otherwise, how could a company do charitable giving? 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 a…

This is why I'm in favor of founder controlled shares (Founder's Fund companies tend to do this - Zuckerberg at FB). Founder's retain total voting control of the company and can do what they think is in the best interest of the company. The board can complain and vote against it in favor of stupid short-term decisions that harm in the company, but in the end Zuck can tell them to fuck off and buy instagram because he…

While I don't completely disagree, a Benevolent (or not) Dictator For Life can have it's own set of problems. And I'd not that it's generally not considered a great governance model for large open source projects--though that's obviously a somewhat different situation.