Hacker News Reader

Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

When has IBM been considered on the rise? I thought they just reinvented themselves into services, sold off the "business machines", and now just suck at the teat of government contracts and consulting? They were considered pioneers in AI with Watson but have been leapfrogged in execution by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google.

So I ask again, what does IBM actually do?

View on HN

In 1996 they were on the rise as compared to their implosion in 1992/1993.

It’s hard to describe the impact of that time - IBM centers were eliminated or eliminated thousands of jobs. Places like Kingston, NY and Binghamton, NY just died as the mainframe business pulled back dramatically.

Everyone laughs about stupid IBM, but frankly they are the only meaningful survivor of the early days of computing and find a way to stay around.

Servers and mainframes that push the envelope every few years. About anything else idk, I don't see those parts of the company.

Power10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power10?wprov=sfla1

No page for Z16 so here's the Telum processor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Telum_%28microprocessor%29...

The wicked thing I got to work on is the Explorer memory chip. Crazy fast throughput and lane width, truly. 38Gbps for DDR4 RAM

Yep that's pretty much it. I have a massive amount of respect for the IBM systems buisness and the people that are a part of it. They are the last surviving computer company, and everyone I've ever met involved in that part of the business genuinely seems to love their jobs and have a real passion for what they do.

The rest of the company could all disappear and I don't think anybody would mind all that much. I've never heard of anybody passionate about working with or on anything besides the core systems. It all looks like consultancy and sales bullshit from the outside.

They were definitely recovering dramatically from the early 1990 s&l crisis, with strong offerings in Unix (RS/6000), re-juvenated mainframe hardware in the Z-series, a huge push into services, etc.

It says (1996) in the title? So the implication is that IBM was perceived to be on the rise again in 1996?

By using many of the same accounting gimmicks that GE used. IBM was in near continuous decline from the late-1980s. It's pretty much a shell of what it use to be.

Are government contracts and consulting considered disreputable for some reason? A reliable and accountable third party firm for custom software development feels like a valid niche worth filling to me, and strikes me as much more moral than the other behemoth tech companies constantly pursuing surveillance capitalism and eroding the digital rights of individuals.

> Are government contracts and consulting considered disreputable for some reason

here in California over decades, income and empires were often consumer-based products with consumer distribution chains.. huge money.. the halls of upstate New York and the skyscrapers of Manhatten were viewed as distant and out of touch. IBM and maybe others were household names, but the source of revenue and the way to participate was completely alien.

So I think you have hit on a nerve, yes.. there is some disrespect

The tech sector is big on innovation and that probably seems orthogonal to government contracts to many. It feels like IBM is a dinosaur using the government to stay alive meanwhile companies like Microsoft and Google have contributed to the ecosystem of tools I use every day while thriving and feel like sexy companies in comparison. I don't know the company that well but this is how I think many view it.

Are they disreputable? Well, they're a niche that you don't get out of.

Companies that depend on big government contracts, and "consulting" (quotes are deliberate here) don't ever rejoin the small business and consumer sectors, ever. They're too big, bureaucratic, and slow.

If you're trying to hold up government and Fortune 100 companies as somehow more virtuous than small-to-medium businesses, you can't be serious. At least they're not too big to fail.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com