The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
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The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
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Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#2I think Pirates of Silicon Valley makes it clear. IBM did not think there was much money in software and they were wrong about it.
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#3When has IBM been considered on the rise? I thought they just reinvented themselves into services, sold off the "business machines", and now just suck at the teat of government contracts and consulting? They were considered pioneers in AI with Watson but have been leapfrogged in execution by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.
So I ask again, what does IBM actually do?
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#4Arrogance of IBM execs flowed into the DNA of IBMers. It's why those let go struggled to find employment elsewhere in the same industry. Obsolete technologies and processes that were too bureaucratic are tough to unlearn.
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#5When has IBM been considered on the rise? I thought they just reinvented themselves into services, sold off the "business machines", and now just suck at the teat of government contracts and consulting? They were considered pioneers in AI with Watson but have been leapfrogged in execution by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. So I ask again, what does IBM actually do?
It says (1996) in the title? So the implication is that IBM was perceived to be on the rise again in 1996?
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#6When has IBM been considered on the rise? I thought they just reinvented themselves into services, sold off the "business machines", and now just suck at the teat of government contracts and consulting? They were considered pioneers in AI with Watson but have been leapfrogged in execution by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. So I ask again, what does IBM actually do?
It says (1996) in the title? So the implication is that IBM was perceived to be on the rise again in 1996?
By using many of the same accounting gimmicks that GE used. IBM was in near continuous decline from the late-1980s. It's pretty much a shell of what it use to be.
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#7Arrogance of IBM execs flowed into the DNA of IBMers. It's why those let go struggled to find employment elsewhere in the same industry. Obsolete technologies and processes that were too bureaucratic are tough to unlearn.
Damn, as an ex-Googler, I have to say... uh... I don't know anything about what might have been going on there :-)
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#8I think Pirates of Silicon Valley makes it clear. IBM did not think there was much money in software and they were wrong about it.
Yes. There was a time in the early 1980s when a software-only company seemed unlikely to become big.
Two examples I was close to:
Interleaf. Interleaf was the first good commercial document processor.[1] Released in 1981. Ran on Sun workstations, quite well. Years ahead of Microsoft Word. The business model was that they would sell you four workstations, a server, and a laser printer for about $60,000. In my days at the aerospace company, we managed, with great difficulty, to get Interleaf to sell us the software alone, since we already had Sun workstations, a laser printer, and a phototypesetter. (Aerospace generates a lot of documents with diagrams.)
As a software-only company, they could not have obtained funding, or, probably, generated enough revenue to operate.
AutoCAD. The story of AutoCAD is well documented in The Autodesk File.[2] Autodesk was founded in 1982. A software-only company was not fundable back then. Autodesk started off with about $62,000 put in by the founders. (Market cap today, $47 billion.) The term sheets for some VC deals that didn't happen are in there.[3] "The overall flavour of the deal seemed to us totally inappropriate for a company which was, at the time of these negotiations, generating sales equal to the size of the deal every month and generating after-tax profits close to the size of the deal every quarter." Autodesk couldn't get funded on reasonable terms even after becoming wildly profitable.
It was an interesting time. There was so much that obviously needed doing and hadn't been done well yet.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleaf
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#9IBM continues to exist. It is interesting to look at their last earnings report: "IBM Sees Modest Annual Sales Growth on Strong Second Half" [1]
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-19/ibm-earni...
Re: The Decline and Rise of IBM (1996)
#10Arrogance of IBM execs flowed into the DNA of IBMers. It's why those let go struggled to find employment elsewhere in the same industry. Obsolete technologies and processes that were too bureaucratic are tough to unlearn.
Damn, as an ex-Googler, I have to say... uh... I don't know anything about what might have been going on there :-)
Shhh…Jeff Dean is a God who designed the Perfect System, protobuffs - despite not being used by anybody but Google - are the One True Way, and setting company priorities via how well middle-management can win political battles to get inflated headcount is innovation optimal.
Right?
That’s why everybody is raving over how awesome Bard is!