Re: How is this news?
The rot set in with Palmisano, IMHO. Gerstner, even if loathed by many, saved the company. And he was a great communicator and motivator. I actually enjoyed reading his regular missives to all employees, something which I can not say about many other IBM executives. Under Gerstner, IBM coined the term "e-business", ran a very smart and successful marketing campaign and actually invested in internet technology and projects very early on. Palmisano inherited a company that, while still having quite a few problem areas, was on a promising path. Sadly, he fumbled badly by solely managing towards an arbitrary earnings-per-share target, treating employees more and more as completely expandable resources, fostering cronyism and stifling innovation. This hollowed out the company as it came to rely mostly on management decisions derived from some Excel spreadsheet. Palmisano bailed out as soon as the first cracks in the armour started to show. Ginni Rometty was part of this. She should have seen the writing on the wall and changed course as soon as she took over, but was too timid and/or too stupid to do so. I am astonished how long IBM has managed to survived bleeding out talent and principles, but I'm still convinced it will not recover and continue its slow spiral into irrelevance.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
