Source: http://www.cringely.com/2016/03/08/whats-happening-at-ibm/


What’s happening at IBM (it’s dying)



Corporate-Life-CycleThis is a column I didn’t want to write. Like many of you I am tired of IBM stories and the company that was once an industry leader has become, at best, a poster child for how not to manage the later stages of a corporate life cycle. But because what’s happening at IBM is also happening right now at hundreds of other big technology companies makes it worth covering. So let me be clear: IBM is dying.

Last week a huge round of layoffs hit IBM just as I predicted back in January. The company is releasing as few details as possible. Nobody, for example, knows exactly how big is this layoff — how many people are being let go? IEEE Spectrum found one source that said the number was 30 percent of the U.S. IBM workforce, a number which IBM says is too high. I also believe 30 percent is too high, especially if you confound it with retirements, contractors being axed, etc.

This round of IBM layoffs looks to me to be in the 20-25 percent range. A similar number of IBM workers were let go last year, but what makes this year’s numbers so notable is that most are regular employees — not contractors or retirees (those were mainly dumped last year to make those layoffs look lower). With IBM U.S. employment in the 90-100,000 range, this suggests that 18,000-25,000 people have just been shown the door at IBM. And they did so under new rules that grant at most one month of severance pay instead of up to 23 weeks that was in effect until the end of 2015. That has to be a kick in the head to all the IBM old-timers who had been waiting for the axe to fall no matter how good they were at their jobs, yet hoping for some kind of package. Well the package is here and it is full of crap.

The IBMers I hear from, and there are lots of them, are generally either pissed-off or scared. But it’s frankly far too late to save the IBM they remember. That company has been gone for years. The best they can hope for is a little clarity and leverage concerning the terms under which they are being shown the door. It looks like IBM isn’t being clear about their options with those on the layoff list and I’ll be covering that in another column this week. But for now I want to explain why I say that IBM is dying.

Big Blue is in transition they say. Old businesses like mainframes and midrange systems are giving way to cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security. The company has done this before many times. Gone are the card sorters and typewriters for example. The theory is that IBM will emerge like Doctor Who from this latest transformation, a new company headed for even greater things.

During such a transition time the job of the CEO is to starve the old businesses to feed the new ones. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has done this in spades because she has the added job of keeping Wall Street happy, which means increasing dividends and share buybacks no matter the actual economics of her business. It’s all done with the idea that the new businesses will more than make up for the old.

But what if they don’t?

The largest shareholder of IBM is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway with over eight percent. In one sense you might think that Buffett would worry about IBM’s stock spiral. On the contrary, a few months ago Buffett explained that as a long-term shareholder who ideally would never sell, falling share prices are actually good because it allows him to buy even more shares on the way down and own that much more of the company when it comes back up.

But right before this round of layoffs Warren Buffett began to change his tune on IBM. He was dour when asked about it and said his partner Charlie Munger was already bearish on IBM. It was a dramatic change of attitude that led to this peculiar clip of CNBC’s Jim Cramer trying to explain it:

http://player.cnbc.com/p/gZWlPC/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&byGuid=3000497637&size=530_298&ap=0&autoplay=0&autoStart=false&player_autoStart=false

What happened? What turned Buffet around? Surely not this one layoff: IBM has been doing these for years, though never so brutally.

The only event that I can see causing this change in Warren Buffett is Ginni Rometty disclosing to her largest shareholder that the basic premise of transition and renewal isn’t working. Things aren;t going well at all in cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security land. When those kick-in (if they kick-in) IBM will be just one company in a crowd with no particular advantage over the others.

IBM used to be able to count on its size, its people, its loyal customers, but all of those are going or gone. Apple or Google could buy IBM with cash on hand, so it’s no longer the Big Kahuna. IBMers of yore are all gone and for the current breed it’s just another job. IBM customers are leaving in droves, too. Of the whole CAMSS suite only security is an obvious success and the world isn;’t ready for a $100 billion security company.

IBM isn’t KODAK or XEROX as one reader asked. It’s not that IBM stuck too long with an old technology or developed new ones it then chose not to sell. A better analogy for IBM is the original AT&T — a companied that spent huge amounts trying to reinvent itself as a cable company and a wireless company only to finally sell itself to SBC for $16 billion.

More on this tomorrow.

[ 本帖最後由 King818 於 2016-3-11 08:28 編輯 ]

IBM面臨很大的挑戰...1. AWS 在雲端的掠奪, 之前將NETFLIX收進，後續也有可能踏入在IBM長年有佔據的銀行業。
2. 深藍已經不藍了...GOOGLE在DEEP LEARNING的發展大幅超前...這兩天ALPHAGO在圍棋上跟人類的對戰...可預期的大勝（目前2:0啦...)..圍棋的複雜度遠比西洋棋還複雜...
所以IBM要多加油了，不要讓價值型投資不價值了......因為在130USD時我也買了20股...

這篇文章一開始即說公司都會死亡，
IBM正在死亡，因裁員20%，
因雲端錯失先機。
同學同意這樣的邏輯嗎？

若我是他的研究部門主管，
我會要求他去補強證據才好下結論。
而且最好找一個真的懂IBM業務的人來寫。

這樣子的新聞常常聽到
台積電....會被韓國怎樣...現在又會被大陸怎樣......
講了快10年了...台積電還是活著
富邦金....金融海嘯會怎樣...二次金改會怎樣....又是講了一堆
還是活著
台塑....原物料崩盤時代.....王永慶陣亡了......台塑回不去了
依然活著
聽到現在都有點麻痺了
什麼東西都是假的，只有財報才是真的
不要說這麼多盈在表按下去
是龍是蟲一看就知道了

AWS 在雲端的掠奪, 之前將NETFLIX收進，後續也有可能踏入在IBM長年有佔據的銀行業
不太同意用新技術與雲端來談銀行業的IT業務
這部分的網路安全還不足以讓銀行界的IT信任
看看有沒有實際案列大銀行敢把IBM SYSTEM 全數轉成雲端AWS 再說
就算AWS 能說自己100% 不故障
難道銀行跟IBM買的軟體系統也可以不用 全部重新開發
跟錢有關銀行業 就是要穩定沒風險的系統 行之有年的方式
這種銀行業IT與IBM合作模式很深根蒂固
IBM還是可以慢慢收取維護合約  10-20 %
銀行業會繼續提供養分 給IBM
我相信畢竟這些給IBM的費用 一定少於一些倒債的爛帳

請教一下, AWS 是指哪一家公司 ? 謝謝

作者認為巴菲特的態度轉為保留, 是下面這段話, 無關最新一輪的裁員:


IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty, 向巴菲特成認了轉型創新失敗.

其實, 我關心的是護城河的問題.
作者的最後一句話是:


假如有競爭對手切入cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security land產業, IBM只一家普通的公司, 沒有特別的競爭優勢.

ICT companies that I am aware of are: HP, Oracle, Fujitsu, Hitachi or SAP.  I think there will be new players like Apple, Google or Amazon down the road.

That's why IBM bought Truven Health Analytics for Watson Health...

關鍵在於整個產業的典範已經移轉.IBM以往靠賣系統與解決方案給客戶，但客戶已經大規模往Cloud(服務租用)平台遷移.IBM過去買了很多好公司,包括商業分析、智能偵測等,都是大數據應用的關鍵技術,只不過內部整合沒有成功.而在Cloud這塊,喊了很多年的投資,仍然停留在想要建立與銷售Cloud Solution給客戶,始終沒有自己代表性的cloud平台與服務.成功的cloud應用,產業中只會存在一、二名,不會人人需要自建Cloud. IBM現在應該僅能稱為System integrator,賺的是辛苦錢.

謝謝指教

藍色巨人快要變成綠色巨人了，轉型創新的路還要多遠呢?IBM加油!!!


IBM Q1 EPS 2.35美元營收勝預期 股價盤後下跌近4%
2016/04/19 06:50 鉅亨網

IBM營收連續16季下滑 。 (圖：AFP)
《Reuters》報導，IBM(IBM-US)上季財報表現優於市場預期，股價盤後仍下跌近4%。
IBM 2016年第一季EPS來到2.35美元，優於市場預期2.09美元。營收來到186.8億美元，優於市場預期182.9億美元，但不如去年同期195.9億美元，且創連續16季減少記錄。
IBM雲端與分析業務貢獻上季整體營收37%，比重較去年同期增加14%。雲端營收成長34%，過去12個月以來營收來到108億美元。
執行長 Ginni Rometty發表聲明表示，他對於公司提供客戶新解決方案與混合雲服務的進展感到很滿意。

IBM's official Q1 tax rate was -95.1%, thanks to a $1.2B benefit related to a $1B refund of previously-paid U.S. taxes. That yielded official tax payments of -$983M, and helped EPS beat estimates in spite of a 170 bps Y/Y drop in gross margin to 46.5% and $1.5B worth of expenses related to "workforce transformation, real estate actions, and actions in Latin America."
悲哀的是這EPS的CONTRIBUTION是來自TAX RATE REFUND，並非實際業務的成長。
所以盤後跌了4%...........

tax refund 如果是一次性的, 是不是已從盈再表的 NET INCOME 扣除了?