IBM to acquire Confluent • Hacker News Board

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#231

Post by Lu2025 » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

notepad0x90 wrote: post #28

This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way? Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic…

> they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products

I worked with IBMers. The main priority for a lot of them is to ensure continuous employment for themselves and their buddies. They'd add unnecessary complexity to a product to stretch out the development for another couple of years. And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks. They can't compete.

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#232

Post by drewda » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

signatoremo wrote: post #179

paxys wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything will make sense when you realize that IBM is a consulting company. They don't care about building great products. In fact building self-serve products will directly take away from their consulting revenue. They instead need to be good at marketing and selling their services. Watson was exactly that - a marketing demo that got them in the news cycle and helped them sell a giant wave of contracts under a sin…

The service part you are likely referring to is now Kyldryl, a separate company. IBM now focus on software and cloud. There are still services but are much less prominent.

FWIW, both of your comments can have some truth:

- the pure consultancy is another company now - the IBM portfolio of software "products" are being packaged in ways that emphasize professional services and elaborate licensing schemes (rather than turnkey software)

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#233

Post by enether » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:33 PM UTC

leeoniya wrote: post #13

previously... https://www.confluent.io/blog/confluent-acquires-warpstream/

Warpstream (by Confluent (an IBM company))

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#234

Post by zipy124 » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

Lu2025 wrote: post #226

oersted wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wrong but the image that people are painting in the comments is getting close to a caricature now. The stuff IBM is doing on Quantum Computing is serious cutting-edge science and engineering for instance. The R&D they are doing on semiconductors on their 2nm and sub-2nm processes is also impressive and hardcore tech. They are doing a bunch of progress on post-quantum cryptography and homomorphic encryption. They'…

> The R&D they are doing on semiconductors on their 2nm and sub-2nm processes is also impressive and hardcore tech. But they don't have production. How can they develop successfully without running silicon in a fab?

They sell the patents to manufacturers. They are an IP shop.

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#235

Post by chadcmulligan » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:37 PM UTC

notepad0x90 wrote: post #28

This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way? Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic…

Have you seen Office Space? I'm sure it was based on IBM

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#236

Post by HashiCorps » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:43 PM UTC

hadrien01 wrote: post #11

Genuine question: how did the IBM acquisitions of Red Hat and HashiCorp turn out? For Red Hat, there's no longer an official "public" distribution of RHEL, but apart from that they seemingly have been left alone and able to continue to develop their own products. But that's only my POV as a user of OSS Red Hat products at home and of RHEL and OpenShift at work.

Former-Hashi employee here: there's a clear prioritization of enterprise products. So much so that I would not be surprised if they stopped supporting the Open Source projects entirely. That would be a big boost for the forks.

Red Hat has far more autonomy. We are not structured the same.

On the HR side — many good people are leaving; new hires have to be on-site for 3 days and located in 4 "strategic" locations in the US.

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#237

Post by Lammy » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

Lu2025 wrote: post #231

notepad0x90 wrote: post #28

This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way? Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic…

> they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products I worked with IBMers. The main priority for a lot of them is to ensure continuous employment for themselves and their buddies. They'd add unnecessary complexity to a product to stretch out the development for another couple of years. And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks. They can't compete.

> And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks.

Ultra-based. We should all be so lucky.

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#238

Post by Xiol » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:55 PM UTC

Lu2025 wrote: post #231

notepad0x90 wrote: post #28

This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way? Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic…

> they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products I worked with IBMers. The main priority for a lot of them is to ensure continuous employment for themselves and their buddies. They'd add unnecessary complexity to a product to stretch out the development for another couple of years. And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks. They can't compete.

They will die happy knowing they did more than just create shareholder value.

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#239

Post by 1970-01-01 » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 9:59 PM UTC

jhickok wrote: post #9

“With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.” https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-12-08-ibm-to-acquire-confluent... I don't understand how this acquisition is relevant for AI.

It's depressing how IBM always uses the same language with every single acquisition. They don't care about the actual tech, only the patents and the ability to resell it.

Re: IBM to acquire Confluent

#240

Post by jhallenworld » Mon, Dec 08, 2025, 10:00 PM UTC

Lu2025 wrote: post #231

notepad0x90 wrote: post #28

This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way? Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic…

> they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products I worked with IBMers. The main priority for a lot of them is to ensure continuous employment for themselves and their buddies. They'd add unnecessary complexity to a product to stretch out the development for another couple of years. And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks. They can't compete.

I'll say this about IBM: because it's so old, it was the most diverse company I ever worked for- including age, nationality, race, sex, and any other category you can think of. Basically you had all types of people in all stages of life, not just young white workaholic tech-bros. The founders are long gone, so everyone there (including CEO) is a professional- meaning nobody has any kind of personal attachment to the company. We were all in the same boat, as it were. When your older coworker suddenly disappears due to a stroke, it puts things in perspective.

The fast-paced startup is really the hack, combining the energy of youth with the ego-mania of their founders. Ask yourself, is it healthy?

Anyway, IBM's customers tend to be other fortune 100s and governments- basically other similar organizations, and my experience was that we took care of them pretty well. The products were not pretty (no Steve Jobs-like person to enforce beauty), and rather complex due to all the enterprise requirements. But they were quite high quality, particularly the hardware.