51–60 of 86 posts
Invest in companies that are actually producing something valuable. That's the way to restart the economy. Can we all move on from the social media bubble and get back to real work now ?
Invest in companies that are actually producing something valuable. That's the way to restart the economy. Can we all move on from the social media bubble and get back to real work now ?
Can you please split your comment in two? The first part is pretty on the spot, but the second part is stupid, wasteful and does not belong on HN since Social Media is productive (Facebook allowed me to get back in touch with some old friends that I haven't heard from in years). You don't have to turn out forks or dig iron from the ground just to be productive.
I think the point that the parent was trying to make was that it was useful (and still is) up to a point where we actually got the benefits from it (like in the example you mentioned), but people seem to be realizing that the rest of the "features" of social networks are simply ways to extract more metadata out of a person.
There are some really novel applications that have been born from the social networking movement, but this seems to be a minority compared to the endless amount of trash that is coming out in parallel.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didnt say convinced so you shouldnt really quote it like that. But then I didnt really mean it that way either. I was thinking more along the lines of Buffet talked with people at IBM and realised that he understood the way they operated.
He never met with the CEO[1] and in fact messed up the name. It is in the realm of possibility (and quite likely) that he talked with people inside IBM. But I don't think they were really pushing for him to buy it. At least it doesn't appear that way. [1] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/14/warren-buffett-ibm/
From what I undersand, Buffet has always avoided technology companies because he believe he didn't understand them well enough in order to invest. Someone at IBM must have changed his mind?
Invest in companies that are actually producing something valuable. That's the way to restart the economy. Can we all move on from the social media bubble and get back to real work now ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IBM's business model is approximately "We will solve your problems for piles and piles of money. Usually not problems that require technical breakthroughs or research level computer science knowledge, but ill-defined problems that involve many stakeholders, much politics, and complex business logic." They make their money as a professional services company (a model Buffett has no trouble understanding) that uses tech…
problems that require technical breakthroughs or research level computer science knowledge, They're not just a plain boring services company. I'm sure that quite a lot of research went into Watson, and I think IBM is betting big on that technology. Potential applications are in healthcare (to quickly find an answer in all medical knowledge), legal documents analysis, and so on.
They definitely spent much more on "ads during football games with the blue bars" in any given year than they did on the whole Watson project.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought Berkshire doesn't invest in IT?
True (until now, I assume). But they must have liquefied some holdings, or did they front the cash for a $10B stake? It tops most of their existing holdings like $5B in Proctor & Gamble and $2B in Wal-Mart (which are some of the largest holdings they have on hand).
This was, I believe, in 1999, so a) he was right at the time coughpets.comcough and b) it's been more than the aforementioned decade, so maybe he has a better idea of what the world looks like now.
Regardless, interesting point.
Those things will become more expensive to maintain through time.
The recent IBM offerings are all based on Open Source being re-packaged:
- IBM packaged Hadoop
- WebSphere Community Edition is based on Tomcat
- IBM HTTP Server is based on Apache
By utilizing open source being pre-packaged and charging for support, they basically can get rid of expensive Software R&D and at the same time probably make an in-road to SMB: use the software that you've been using but with IBM support behind it! (discussion regarding the quality of IBM support is left for other time but let me say this straight up: Microsoft software support has been far more superior in terms of speed and the quality of the response than IBM lately).
Having said that, IBM is also becoming some sort of SaaS for government agencies. In some places in North America, IBM machines are printing the local ID card (and probably Driver's Licenses as well). So when a resident lose their local ID card, they'll have to pay the Government certain amount of money and IBM takes a percentage of that.
Maybe Buffett and his co. saw a big picture of IBM strategy to become more aggressive in that market (SaaS for big enterprises) seeing that Big Data is all the rage these days. That's a bigger lock-out that nobody can escape for years and still charging money without having to upgrade or add more features to compel people to upgrade.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He never met with the CEO[1] and in fact messed up the name. It is in the realm of possibility (and quite likely) that he talked with people inside IBM. But I don't think they were really pushing for him to buy it. At least it doesn't appear that way. [1] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/14/warren-buffett-ibm/
On CNBC this morning, Buffet made it sound as if it was more about liking the value based on the annual report he saw in March. He's been reading IBM's annual report for over 25 years. He did some diligence, and then began establishing a position.