---
I believe your severely underestimate the influence of regional culture.
IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
101–110 of 158 posts
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#102Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. There's immense pressure on the mainframe market; there's a constant drumbeat of mainframe-killer tech that's definitely better/faster/stronger (and, on rare occasions, is...at least for some narrowly defined workload). IBM has to work very hard keep mainframes competitive technology, and even harder at sales/marketing to fend off the alternatives.
What competitive technology are you thinking here? IBM z-series mainframe carry enormous amounts of transaction workloads today. They are deeply embedded in most of the Fortune 1000 companies. Hitachi was the only real competitor left standing and they dumped their mainframe business in 2017 since they were unable to get traction outside of Japan. In the early 90's, there were efforts by customers to get rid of their…
But mainframe customers are still dumping them, and they're not picking IBM: https://cloud.google.com/press-releases/2020/0121/sabre-and-...
Note that SABRE is the OG enterprise app, by most measures it was the first non-military/govt/research computer system, going live in 1960 (!) and the core still runs System/360 (which they had to migrate to, not from!).
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#104From the CNBC article covering this: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/30/ibm-ceo-ginni-rometty-steps-... >In a release, Rometty described Krishna as a “brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain” Sounds like IBM's strategy is going all in on buzzwords.
> Sounds like IBM's strategy is going all in on buzzwords.
It has been for some time, which is sad because their flagship hardware still stands the test of time--I'm writing this on an old 10+ year old thinkpad.
When I worked there it was just that, buzzword laden marketing to entice their legacy customers try a tech which they could onboard on to their cloud product(s). It was disheartening as their Food Safety program had so much early-stage penetration from Multi-nationals that it could have done amazing things.
Sadly, it was entirely predictable but the thinkpad fan boy in me thought it could have prevailed.
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#105Is IBM even relevant anymore or are they simply another McKinsey type consulting firm Who happens to sell mainframes to banks?
> Is IBM even relevant anymore or are they simply another McKinsey type consulting firm Who happens to sell mainframes to banks?
They are perhaps one of the biggest Government/Military Hardware contractors in the US, so sadly: Yes.
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, the Indian education system was crafted to create 'Brown Sahibs' to manage the Colonial Govt., and unlike say SE Asia and E. Asia, the system remains in essentially the same state that the British left it in. Indeed, most 'Indian Americans' are united in their hatred for their home countries IMO. On the other hand, it's very unsurprising that India's greatest export remains Human Labour. For those who don…
That's both a little harsh and doesn't stand up to scrunity. As a counterexample, consider Singapore, which also has inherited and retained the British education & legal systems, as well as standardized on English as the lingua franca despite it being nobody's mother tongue. Yet Singapore has still become one of the world's richest countries, while Malaysia next door, starting from almost the same position (they were…
Nonsense. Russian(Ex-USSR), China are more extreme in central planning and inward focus than India will ever be.
The real problem is insatiable desire among Indians for Managerial/Administrative jobs. Or Govt bribe income potential jobs(Again in Administration). Most people want to be in abstract boss level administrative/managerial jobs because they think they can just give orders and make 10x more money than people who do 10x work to make things happen and make 0.1x money.
Indians do well in administration/management because it's the most aspirational job here. Lastly India is a country of shopkeepers and resellers. We are NOT an engineering or industrialization intensive country.
There is a fundamental cultural problem and that is unlikely to be solved soon given the misaligned incentives.
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe your severely underestimate the influence of regional culture.
---
Definitely didn't expect to find this way of thinking on HN. Putting people into buckets of what they're good or bad at because of what their ancestors did. You're just perpetuating the numerous issues the caste system has, spewing this shit.
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
This feels somewhat strange. A more plausible explanation (one given in some of the sibling threads) is that most of these folks are immigrants, and simply being an immigrant tells you something about the nature of this groups of people. But there is a twist: most of the immigrants from South Asia are also highly educated and here legally. That is quite a powerful combination in itself. Considering the large populati…
Indian Brahmins (the traditionally educated class) mostly getting kicked out of the country and not finding space in its social hierarchy after imposing thousands of years of the untouchability/caste system on everyone else. No other country had as many priests who were suddenly displaced from social hierarchy after their independence movement.
They're hardly getting kicked out. They still occupy positions of power and leave only because they have the choice and privilege to do so.
The caste system, like racism in Western countries, is only abolished legally - in social settings it continues to exist - though it's not as bad as it was before independence.
Re: IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a biased, but honest observation that I'd like to share. I've been working for a big corp for about 5 years now. I was born in a SE Asian country and came to the US for college. I have worked with a lot of India-born people. As a fellow foreigner and as an Asian, I can tell that more often than not Indian people are bolder and more aggressive in asking for what they want (e.g., one of my Indian colleague aske…
Don't forget the infamous in-group preferences they bring as soon as they take over.
At Microsoft we called this phenomenon the "Indocritical mass", for obvious reasons. Russians are the polar opposite of this, BTW. If a Russian is interviewing a Russian, _less_ slack will be cut than if they were interviewing anybody else.