(oh, and, the pet theory also includes occult Illuminati-ish inauguration rituals for C-level executives. "swear to $DEITY that you will spend lots of dough on fun fundamental research or forever stay the meager mid-level manager you are". Candles, catacombs, robes, distant humming male background choir, that sort of stuff)

(they'll keep the shareholders in check by a mixture of nonsense and honesty about why IBM really needs to do so much fun fundamental research. if all C-level people talk the talk the same, and otherwise don't suck at what they do, then i bet they can keep the shareholders from getting all too grumpy about spending $3B on something that might pay off in 20 years, maybe)

No, their goal is to make lots of money with boring IT consultancy so they can plow it back into stock buybacks and other financial engineering tricks.

Maybe Google should buy IBM.