Disputing the Achievements of IBM's CEO, Who Already Terminated Many Jobs at Red Hat (Which He Had Allegedly Suggested Buying)
Buying a company to gut it within about a year?
IBM's CEO Arvind K. (often called "Alvind" by insiders, sometimes just AK, his initials) is nonchalantly attributed or credited with the sale of Red Hat to IBM. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing (to Red Hat? To IBM?) is perhaps not what matters most here, but there's a new sub-thread today that discusses how it came about, mentions "software patents", and whether the attribution for the sale is warranted. Here are three messages that are hours or minutes old (those certainly sound like insiders wrote them):
Alvind was an executive bulls**t artist prior to becoming CEO. He was known for wasting his time and energy on pointless trivial pursuits and wasting money on worthless research projects in various divisions of IBM that he was assigned to. Blame the losers at the top like Palmisano and Rometty for this mess - they gave the crown to this charlatan, since they assumed India was the bright jewel in their crown. It isn't, at last not any more. Alvind the Indian was in the Software group but contributed nothing of value to anything that was going on, except to say he was financing projects as the leading executive of the group. Perhaps you can go and search for any software patents that has his name on it as someone who worked on any important commercial software project. I'll bet that someone else did the background research on Red Hat to evaluate it's potential and Alvind simply took the credit and then became CEO. Happens all the time. IBM was simply bankrolling Red Hat during the good times till they decided to buy it - every IBM executive around would love to claim credit for making that decision. Alvind talks a good game to get onto the New York Bank board but is he capable of doing anything of value there ? Not in this writer's humble opinion, except it makes him look good to show up at photo opportunities. You can be a dullard but still be in the right place at the right time and get your photo in the press to make yourself look important and wise. If you have enough money (and influence) you can buy off people, corporations, and even their silence when you do wrong. If Trump can do it, why not Alvind with the enormous finances from IBM ? Why does IBM buy the silence of the plaintiffs, when they lose age discrimination lawsuits ? Why aren't the NDA's made public ? It's a corrupt corporation and as we know - all bad things come to an end, just like all good things.
The response:
It sounds like you think buying Red Hat was a fantastic move any executive would love to have credit for?How was a $34B pay good in terms of the ROI so far especially as a huge debt costs paying interest on the equivalent of $34B?!
Looks like the biggest flop in the history of corporate M&A . IBM buys companies then waste them.
How was buying the Weather Company ended...? Just an example...
The crazy IBM's debt looks to me a bankruptcy is close as the interest on such debt could ki-l IBM's cash flow. Next step could be eliminating the dividends just like Intel was forced to do. Intel is like the IBM to be in the near future?
Ana back again:
No, no one really knows how any purchase will turn out and I'm not saying any IBM executives know how things might turn out (or not) - same as anything else in life. IBM first dipped their toe (dabbled) in the software business in the mid 1990s when they paid 2 Billion bucks for Lotus Development Corp. which was a huge sum in those days. They learned from that experience and moved on to buy other good purchases like Rational etc. The margins were better for software and services compared to only hardware and I believe that both areas still profitable. It allowed them to fund the Open Source projects like Red Hat and Apache too. But the Red Hat cost was a huge number, and it was a make or break IBM deal. IBM mgmt believes in secrecy so the numbers never come out if they recovered that money they spent or not. They didn't break it down for Lotus or Rational software purchases either. But you're right about wasting companies - but Lotus Notes / Domino was in use all over IBM (it still is if you can dig around in the right places and you'll find a few Domino servers still running in 2024) . IBM was the biggest customers of their own product. LOL ! Notes was like a dr-g and they couldn't wean themselves off it. Those Lotus (IRIS) guys knew what they were doing, when they sold the company to IBM, because they designed and built an exceptional product, that is still running today. HCL is now selling it.IBM leadership has always been clueless but there were a few smart executives in the past who knew what they were getting into. You can't say the same for Palmisano, Rometty or Alvind though. Nothing but a bunch of egotistical and greedy fools who have run the company into the ground. It's destined for the scrap heap of history and not for another century of greatness. There will not be a phoenix rising from the ashes either.
Just my rambling 0.02c !
There's another thread about impending layoffs. Some people see some signs or writings on the wall. Posted in the past day are two comments. One said: "Expect at least 2 layoffs in each of the next few years which are typically around the end of the first and third quarters. We will have to see if that changes when the new CEO is announced though it is hard to believe it will change as the new CEO will probably continue on the same track since at this point IBM only has cost cutting as its tool to show that the company is not totally dead."
And latest: "It’s IBM - layoffs are ALWAYS on the table every quarter" (remember that IBM and Red Hat are the same thing; with the NDAs, it's hard to differentiate silent IBM layoffs from silent Red Hat layoffs, a la Kyndryl, which has the same issues).
Red Hat layoffs would be more stubbornly concealed by IBM because the people behind the sale (IBM's CEO apparently) have to justify the considerable spending to the shareholders. If Red Hat was acquired as a "future direction" and valuable "asset", then layoffs there would serve to dispute that hypothesis and signify terrible leadership. █