Hacker News Reader

Comment by gallinaponedora | Hacker News Reader

website is down, the sweet irony... Now haven´t seen the opinion, I'm sure I have read the same already (over and over). IBM is not declining. To be magnanimous, I´d say it is only declining for narrow minded tech people who can see past their area of expertise. They are not investing, they are not innovating, they are cutting jobs in the US, bla bla bla. Well, they've been compounding at over 10% for the investor for the last 10 years, sure enough it's just a lucky strike or a mirage, right? yawn

View on HN

Agreed. I can't reach the article as the site is down, so my comment may be out of context, but i do agree they're doing something right. I haven't been following their stock price, but i do take the odd glance at their movements.

I was in talks with an employee at a blue-chip here in the UK, about assisting them with their digital strategy. They clearly needed alot of help. Unfortunately a major player swooped in - fast forward 12 months - they've helped them turn things around and now the client is doing great.

Turns out the major player that swooped in was IBM. Who knew IBM was actively doing digital marketing. I mean they're an IT company, right? I.e. networks, servers, software.

I think the reality is, they're a consulting company for big business that will help their clients get anything done and it only has to be remotely technical.

So i think they'll be around for a long time to come.

Right! They are mostly a consulting company now (much like PwC consulting was...), and we should judge them as such. As I'm interested in tech R&D, that makes them completely uninteresting to me, and I don't think they should be valued higher than my current employer (Microsoft), but the market works in mysterious ways.

> Well, they've been compounding at over 10% for the investor for the last 10 years

Those sort of metrics are lagging indicators - they are about what was done in the past. There were plenty of similar companies with similar performance, right before they cratered. The Innovator's Dilemma covers this in detail. (Of course that is no guarantee IBM will crater.)

And nothing of value was lost. It's a blog post with an intentionally hyperbolic headline to let you know he has a new book to sell.

exactly.

"Why Warren Buffett Keeps Buying IBM"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gurufocus/2013/01/08/why-warren-...

I must be missing something, because when you have a debt/equity ratio of 173, isn't that a huge warning sign?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com