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IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

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Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#311

Post by mardifoufs »

colinmhayes wrote: post #225
donkarma wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you think YouTube is profitable?

Yes, I think youtube is making billions of dollars a year. Youtube's revenue was $25 billion last year. It's a mature product. You don't think it's making money?

Google still doesn't release the profit figures for youtube, only revenue. Even the revenue figure was a secret until 2--3 years ago, so it was probably not that high. If youtube was very profitable, I'm not sure why Google would hide it in its earnings since they almost always try to show how they aren't exclusively dependent on their search ad business. I'm not saying youtube does not make any profit at this point, but if it wasn't tiny there's no reason for them not to talk about it.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#312

Post by MerelyMortal »

dangrossman wrote: post #277
JediPig wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so I worked at IBM cloud, and can confirm this. They bought a cloud service, that by itself, and if left alone would been great. Soft(....something...) was the company... then IBM came and changed everything. I remember the SVP / President of ibm cloud showing up... talking 3 hours about how her son is so great and that we should 'follow' his example... after hour 3, man goes and interrupts and asks a question that w…

I stopped using Softlayer after IBM took over. I still get emails about the daily "incidents" in "IBM Cloud", as well as monthly billing notices for my $0 bill. I don't know my "IBM Id" or "Softlayer Id" to log in any more as it's been almost a decade, so I can't unsubscribe from any of it.

Sounds like a violation of the U.S. CAN SPAM Act.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#313

Post by hackerbrother »

zitsarethecure wrote: post #204
nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

> They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, I know they bought Red Hat but I didn't hear that they gutted it. Can you expand on that?

Was going to say, Red Hat seems to be doing fine/great. Very innovative Linux company.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#314

Post by ab_testing »

blip54321 wrote: post #80
nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

I was surprised by some companies too, until I worked outside of tech. The whole rest of the universe needs software too. Most companies are grossly incompetent to develop it themselves. Most are things that SWEs of the type which visit HN would never, ever want to work on. IBM does that adequately well. That's "services." If I need a tool built which will manage workflow at a management consulting firm, a custom too…

> IBM isn't a bad choice. It's a major step up from Indian firms in terms of both price and quality. It has significant in-house technology to leverage. It's a safe choice. It will usually do better than in-house IT.

Having been there, I can say that IBM is no different than the other Indian tech firms like Infosys, Wipro, HCL and other. Infact, there is a rotating door of employees among IBM and other Indian firms.

1. Since the last 5 years, IBM has more employees in India than in the US or any other country [1]

2. Secondly IBM pays more that the Indian companies in India to poach employees but shortchange their US counterparts. [2]

Infact, the only difference between IBM and other firms is that the initial sales procoess is handled by American counterparts. Once the sales piece is done and the actual project starts, it is replaced by the offshore team.

[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-now-has-more-workers-in-in...

[2] https://www.postbulletin.com/opinion/ibm-to-give-raises-to-i...

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#316

Post by stillworks »

tomrod wrote: post #139
transfire wrote: post #75

The only real business problem is they didn’t program Watson to do what the Healthcare industry actually wants — make more $$$$$. The last thing they want is a computer that can actually diagnose people and provide effective solutions.

> The last thing they want is a computer that can actually diagnose people and provide effective solutions. Intimately knowing the non-profit side of the healthcare system as well as the construction and operation of data science systems, I wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion and your conclusion as being a general takeaway.

Can you possibly provide some objective comments on why that comment may be incorrect ?

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#317

Post by davidgerard »

agumonkey wrote: post #157
nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

IBM is old, it's good and bad (probably not the first time they made bad decisions). Let's see if they can wash off the last decade or two that were full of mistakes. They still do stuff but it's hard research and niche so business wise it won't make them short term success. You mention power but they also have a good hand in Quantum Computing.

> Quantum Computing

which may take over the world, but is presently at the stage "call me when it can reliably factor 35"

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#318

Post by Hokusai »

HollywoodZero wrote: post #175
JediPig wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so I worked at IBM cloud, and can confirm this. They bought a cloud service, that by itself, and if left alone would been great. Soft(....something...) was the company... then IBM came and changed everything. I remember the SVP / President of ibm cloud showing up... talking 3 hours about how her son is so great and that we should 'follow' his example... after hour 3, man goes and interrupts and asks a question that w…

Isn't this the typical corporate acquisition process? * Bring in Deloitte, McKenzie, or other consulting group. * Gut the acquired company to reduce costs. * Fold newly acquired divisions into existing mediocre division. * Service gets run into the ground without the original people who made it great. * Eventually the service degrades and customers leave, business line stops generating profits * Company goes through…

I have seen that with General Electric.

It's not easy to know when is the right time to jump your old trusted provider. At the beginning of the acquisition not much happens. Things degrade slowly because employees take the burden of doing the job for two people. But nobody can be subjected to the stress for too many years.

Big corporations create nothing, only abuse the good faith of employees and the cost of moving providers of small companies. I have seen that happening in tech. When small innovative companies grew they got enough economic power to not have to innovate anymore. Purchase small good companies and drain them is the new business model.

And it's a shame, there was a time that liked IBM, and others.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#319

Post by seanp2k2 »

nickysielicki wrote: post #48

I do not understand how IBM stays in business. As far as I’m concerned the only cool engineering thing IBM does anymore is POWER, which has a sort of unique memory architecture but otherwise is well behind everyone else. What else did they do in my lifetime? They took a profitable RedHat and gutted it, they took the best Laptop line and sold it to Lenovo and almost ruined it, they tried to be a front runner in ML but…

I’m guessing that governments are keeping them afloat, especially on long-term contracts and with bespoke projects.

Re: IBM’s Watson Health is sold off in parts

#320

Post by virtue3 »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #254
sofixa wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest airline booking system, Amadeus, can actually run on Kubernetes and some airlines are migrating to it. Fun fact: a few years back Amadeus employees were in the top 15 of k8s contributors by company.

Is airline booking software very complex? I don’t see why that software would necessitate the updating of k8s.

It's kind of similar in some ways to the traveling salesman problem. Which is not considered np-hard.

"How do you get to tokyo from paris", the cheapest, the shortest time, the least layovers, add a stop in X, etc. Not that easy.

Then you have to remember all the stuff under the hood like how are you caching all that information, how do you actually register the sales of all those tickets. Are they in your flight alliance? Are they goign through your regional airline systems too?

I would never want to touch that stuff. Way too hard. Way too many legacy systems powering it too, probably.

See also: https://franz.com/success/customer_apps/data_mining/itastory...

Which is now owened by google and probably powering google flights lol

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