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back to article Hip and modern IBM can't beat legacy kit and services IBM: That's four consecutive quarters of revenue decline now

IBM notched up its fourth straight quarter of revenue decline as the areas it deems strategic – hybrid cloud, AI and blockchain – couldn't paper over cracks in the legacy operations of big iron and outsourcing. That said, in Q2 2019, Big Blue took actions to "de-emphasise" its lower-margin services contracts and continued to …

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  1. Caff

    zcloud

    Lot of banks and other finance companies are looking at z cloud but no one wants to be the first to take the jump as they are all very risk adverse. Once they finish off their current cycle of "digital" projects in the next 2-3 year I can see the adoption of z cloud getting bigger which should improve IBM's financials.

    5 1 Reply
    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: zcloud

      The first one to make the jump, Caff, leads all the others who follow on similar trajectories/novel directions.

      0 1 Reply
      1. James Anderson
        Reply Icon

        Re: zcloud

        Well look at how successful TSB's jump on to a cloud was.

        8 0 Reply
        1. idoxde
          Reply Icon

          Re: zcloud

          I can't believe that nobody told them to not make any changes on a Friday...

          0 0 Reply
  2. fredesmite
    Mushroom

    IBM -- India Business Machines

    Use to mean : I've Been Moved

    5 2 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    92B share buyback

    Not mentioned is that there are no dividends paid for those shares once bought, so there is a cost savings there. IBM actually pays a pretty hefty dividend, as one would expect for an old iron business. The new fangled bizzes like Uber, they can pay out zero dividends and lose a billion a quarter and still watch their price rise.

    The author is correct in that perhaps investing that stock buy-back money might have been wiser, but Ginni's predecessors definitely were not that bright. Still in question whether Ginni has lights on or not.

    4 0 Reply
  4. trevorde Silver badge
    Trollface

    Missing details

    What will Ginni's bonus be? Will she have another helicopter? When will the RA's start (again)?

    10 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Missing details

      When will the RA's stop?

      FTFY

      9 0 Reply
    2. Mayday
      Reply Icon
      Alert

      I don't understand

      Why one would want to work here. They are on my (rather short) blacklist of companies to work for when a recruiter rings me.

      NFW would I want to go somewhere with such a diabolical (recent) reputation and history of mass layoffs.

      8 1 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I don't understand

        To be fair, the list of mega companies that have been slashing and burning almost constantly is fairly large. Its not just IBM, but any sizeable IT services outfit or IT vendor.

        I guess the trouble is that when you have in excess of say 100,000 employees its easy for someone to say "but what do they all do? surely we can get rid of... *plucks a multiple of a thousand from the air*"

        2 1 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I don't understand

        I ended up there, not because a recruiter nabbed me, but rather that they borg'd my employer.

        They lined up everyone's roles with their bands, I was 2 months off a 'senior' lower end cutoff, but no. So kept on a lower band.

        Then they brought in grads at the same band. And a useless 'experienced' employee on a higher band who had never even worked with CLI (terminal, bash, DOS etc), and had the gall to get me to train him, plus the 2 Singapore staff (who were actually personally quite nice) that they were lining up to replace me.

        1 0 Reply
  5. Youngone Silver badge

    Tax is for the little people I see

    net profit was $2.489bn after paying $1m in tax.

    Goodness.

    7 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tax is for the little people I see

      Not sure where El Reg got the $1m tax number - it would be interesting indeed if Big Blue was paying that little tax.

      According to their earnings report the correct numbers are net profit $2.498bn, tax $269m.

      4 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For the sake of the future, IBM must do something cloudy well.

    Ginny's cannibalized most everything else not cloud related. Yet the "else" still brings in the most revenue.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      now everything IBM sell is cloud related, doesn't matter what it was before, now its all "cloud" as the creative accounting continues.

      2 0 Reply
  7. deevee

    Don't worry, IBM will do what it always does. Pump the latest and greatest "strategic" product for 18 months, sell it to who ever is stupid enough to listen, then dump it and pump the next "latest and greatest" strategic product.

    Blockchain must have been sold to those silly enough to buy in for 12 months now, so give it another 6 months before its dumped and buried in favour of some Red Hat "strategic" vapourware.

    2 1 Reply
  8. FozzyBear

    Death by a thousand cuts

    @ caff.

    The reason no one has taken the leap on Z cloud is the competition offers are comparable if not better than IBM.

    IBM is still using old IT business practices. Relying on market dominance to insert themselves after the fact. Either quickly cobbling something together and marketing the hell out of it or simply buying one companies leading the charge .

    Problem there is AWS, Google or Microsoft would be looking at IBM as a chew toy nowadays

    1 0 Reply

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