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Businesses IBM Red Hat Software

IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO, Replacing Ginni Rometty (bloomberg.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.
An anonymous reader writes: IBM named Arvind Krishna as chief executive officer, replacing longtime CEO Virginia Rometty. Krishna, 57, is currently the head of IBM's cloud and cognitive software unit and was a principal architect of the company's purchase of Red Hat, which was completed last year. Rometty, 62, will continue as executive chairman and serve through the end of the year, when she will retire after almost 40 years with the company, IBM said in a statement Thursday. The shares rose about 5% in extended trading.

Since becoming IBM's first female CEO in 2012, Rometty had bet the company's future on the market for hybrid cloud, which allows businesses to store data on both private and public cloud networks run by rivals such as AmazonWebServices and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure. By then Big Blue, once the world leader in technology, had lagged behind competitors for years after largely missing the initial cloud revolution under her predecessor, Sam Palmisano. The announcement comes as a "welcome and overdue leadership change," said Wedbush Securities analyst Moshe Katri. "At least that's how we're looking at it -- and obviously the market seems to agree." "Krishna, her successor, was the mastermind behind the Red Hat deal. He proposed the acquisition to Rometty and the board, suggesting hybrid cloud is the company's best bet for future growth," adds Bloomberg. "He has led the development of many of IBM's newer technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud and quantum computing."

"Prior to IBM adopting its hybrid multi-cloud strategy, the company had a walled-garden approach to cloud computing, largely focusing on its own services. Krishna spearheaded IBM's shift toward hybrid, prompting the company to work with rival providers rather than compete against them."

Slashdot reader celest adds: In case there were still any doubts that IBM is turning into Red Hat, not the other way around, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst has just been named President of IBM. (Full disclosure: I'm the open-source strategy guy at IBM Canada).
While he was CEO of Red Hat, Jim Whitehurst answered questions from Slashdot's readers.
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IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO, Replacing Ginni Rometty More

IBM Names Arvind Krishna CEO, Replacing Ginni Rometty

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  • crap websites (Score:3)

    by evanh ( 627108 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @10:55PM (#59673502)

    prnewswire is the only one without blocking rubbish.

    • The first link, to Bloomberg, "detected unusual activity from my computer network" and wanted me to complete a capcha. Clearly they find adblockers unusual. They can fuck off.

      Next story please.

    • On prnewswire the whole thing is the ad. If you are blocking the whole site it doesn't cost them any money so they don't care.

  • Yup (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday January 30, 2020 @11:23PM (#59673542)

    IBM is dead and will stay dead.

  • I have no idea who would want to buy Virtual Servers from IBM. They are 6 times the cost of the equivalent purchased elsewhere for zero benefit (other than the three letters, I B and M).

    • Those 3 letters still mean something. I'm not sure what it ought to mean to me, but apparently it does mean they can sell SAAS solutions that come at twice the cost of running the same software in-house, while you still have to pay separately for software upgrades (which now happen at IBM's discretion, not yours). Plus a healthy fee for having the data moved from your servers to theirs. Any other company bringing such a proposal would have been shown the door, but IBM closed that deal somehow.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jtara ( 133429 )

      I have no idea who would want to buy Virtual Servers from IBM. They are 6 times the cost of the equivalent purchased elsewhere for zero benefit (other than the three letters, I B and M).

      Specifics?

      Cloud is not just "Virtual Servers", whatever you mean by that.

      Have you seen this?

      Cloud Vendor Costs: IBM Has Lowest, AWS Remains Pricey [ibm.com]

      and:

      AWS rolls out unique cost-control option, but vendor remains pricey [ciodive.com]

      I just shake my head when I am in a room full of AWS users talking about their many virtual servers where they configure their own database instances, and set up complicated Kubernetes setups again with many virtual servers that tick away hour by hour collecting f

  • I have never seen IBM / Redhat / Softlayer ever come close to even bidding on any cloud data storage or compute let alone have any Edge strategy

    Yes I' sure the mainframes are nice... but really if they can not work out how to manage these and sell parts of them (timeshare) then I suspect they will have a hard time going forward....

    look at the revenues for Azure or AWS... IBM could own that and have a consulting firm as well... oh well

       

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jtara ( 133429 )

      Yes I' sure the mainframes are nice... but really if they can not work out how to manage these and sell parts of them (timeshare) then I suspect they will have a hard time going forward....

      Actually, they have, but admittedly later then they could have.

      IBM is now offering managed database services and virtual servers on IBM Cloud that run on highly-secure IBM Z mainframes under LinuxOne.

      They are branding these as "Hyper Protect":

      IBM Hyper Protect Services [ibm.com]

      To my knowledge, everybody else is offering only virtual servers and services that run on buggy Intel hardware.

  • The company is in decline, and they just gave themselves a youth injection. Iâ(TM)m not a fan of IBM, but Krishna headed what was probably the best move they couldâ(TM)ve done.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Maybe you didn't read all the summary: "He has led the development of many of IBM's newer technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud and quantum computing."

      IBM developed none of those, and passing that out in a press release just shows how disconnected the management is with the company.

    • they just gave themselves a youth injection

      Yeah, replacing a 62yo with a 57yo - and maybe the 57yo would even pass for 55. But I cant find a picture as the links are crap.
      I guess you are aiming for a "Funny" mod - c'mon mods!

      • I think you whooshed.

        They added a 26 year old company to their 108 year old company. Hence the "youth injection. He unfortunately put what he was talking about in the subject, which most people don't read.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dadoo ( 899435 )

      They aren't doing themselves any favors. Have you worked with Red Hat, recently? I just tried to buy a Linux subscription and got an error on the checkout screen with both Firefox and Chrome on Linux. Finally, at my boss's suggestion, I tried Internet Explorer. It worked. WTF, Red Hat? Are they even trying to sell Linux subscriptions, anymore? Of course, that made me look really good, in front of my boss, as the resident Linux evangelist.

      Between that and the current quality of their support, I seriously dou

  • takes the golden parachute. 'Accomplishments' -30% in stock price 24 consecutive quarters of revenue decline executive compensation bonuses scandals, massive layoffs and outsourcing I guess on the bright side thats better than some of her woke male counterparts. Will shareholders and society ever learn? I suppose at least we finally found something Corporate America loves more than money.

    • Or maybe she's just shit because she's shit. Not because she's a woman.

      I don't get it though. From my experience, on I trust the women I know to be, on average, better at organizing things and keeping the coop together.
      And the men to venture out into the unknown or engineer something.

      Yeah, they should have chosen somebody based on their skills, and clearly didn't. Maybe because of stupid sexist ideology like "affirmative action". But it's not like they are any better at picking a skilled man than at picking

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        To be fair to her, I would characterize IBM's recent decline in stock largely to things that Palmisano did that were doomed to failure, made some unrealistic promises to investors and then jumped out riding on the high of the promises with no idea how it would actually happen.

        To a large extend Rometty was stuck with the timebomb Palmisano made and he was smart enough to jump out before the problems he started came home to roost.

        She didn't help things by being mediocre at best, but the utter crap show of IBM

  • Watson CEO (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They should get rid of them both and make Watson the CEO.

  • Hello,

    I wonder what effect this will have, if any, on the pending age discrimination lawsuit against IBM?

    Regards,

    Aryeh Goretsky

  • Give Him 2 Years (Score:3)

    by phalse phace ( 454635 ) on Friday January 31, 2020 @02:44AM (#59673822)

    Arvind Krishna will have 2 years, 3 years top, to prove his worth. If in that time he doesn't turn IBM around, watch the board of directors (or an activist investor) replace him with Jim Whitehurst

  • It says "chairman".
    I didn't know "Virginia" was a male name in the US. Nor that the short form was "Ginny". (Then again, "Bill" for "William" makes no freaking sense whatsoever to me. ^^)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      Chairman is short for "chair manager" - it's gender-neutral. It's not like spokesman/spokeswoman/spokesperson which is gendered.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        Chairman is short for "chair manager" - it's gender-neutral.

        No, you're wrong. From the mid 1600's it's been used to identify the occupier of a "chair of authority". The use of the word "chairwoman" is almost as old, though not as frequently used, for the obvious reason that chairwomen were fewer in number than chairmen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      How does "Ginny" not make sense as a familiar form for Virginia? Take the stressed syllable (vir-GIN-i-a) and add the -y familiar/diminutive suffix. Virginia -> Gin -> Ginny. Bill is a corruption because "W" and "B" are both voiced bilabial consonants. William -> Will -> Bill (the second corruption is making the initial voiced bilabial plosive).

  • Ok, stop it (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday January 31, 2020 @04:12AM (#59673934)

    We should stop putting George Lucas in charge of inventing the IBM CEO names, really, it's getting silly.

  • Ok, OK you got a couple of big name CEOs, all PHBs I am sure. But still, every time your guys come on stage, we IITm, will chant, "Who won the GC? ... We won the GC!". That has not changed for decades.
  • Historically IBM was a power player in the industry, no one would deny that. Large organizations such as IBM are at a significant disadvantage in terms of being nimble and quick to adjust with the technology evolution. Regardless of the specific area of analysis e.g. Cloud, storage, compute, etc. these are highly dynamic and competitive markets; IBM just hasn't moved fast enough, in my opinion, and as a result we see them consistently behind. I know several IBM employees well, and they are wonderful peop

    • " Large organizations such as IBM are at a significant disadvantage in terms of being nimble and quick to adjust with the technology evolution."

      Agreed. IBM used to have complete control over "big boy" enterprise computing and a huge portion of the business machines market when those were mainly typewriters and other not-computer office machines. Now the trend is "move fast and break things", but IBM was (and still is to some extent) committed to delivering a product or service that had zero surprises. It's

    • Large IT organizations always have too much invested into the paradigm that got them where they are, and too much individual and group effort goes into trying to use size, market power and so on to retain what they did/were vs. recognizing it wouldn't get them into the future or be competitive with the next paradigm.

      The irony with IBM is that in many ways they orchestrated the paradigm shift themselves with the IBM PC without enough control over it to profit from it, and when the paradigm began to shift aga

  • That's the official end of Fedora Linux (Score:3)

    by OneSmartFellow ( 716217 ) on Friday January 31, 2020 @10:23AM (#59674856)
    Time to switch away from RedHat based distros.

    I hate Ubuntu.

    Maybe time to switch to Arch

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Time to switch away from RedHat based distros.

      I've had about a 15-year head start. The problem is that they keep finding ways to force their garbage into other distros which leaves us with very limited options.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ediron2 ( 246908 )

      First off, Debian and Mint. Instead of RH->Fedora, their origin story is Deb->Ub->Mint, with Deb being a largely-independent precursor, unlike Fedora's deep ties into RH, and Mint being a 'fuck this, but I do like the multimedia extensions' rejection of Ubuntu's economics/philosophy.

      But yeah, Arch is quite nice. And it's 'user friendly' spawn is Manjaro.

  • IBM has been brain dead for about 30 years already, ever since it gave up on small computers in deference to large mainframes, and gave up on software in deference to hardware. It's much like Xerox with printers and graphical computing, or RCA with LCDs and even transistors.

    Basically, it's part of the life cycle of big companies. Eventually, the bean counters take over, and when conditions change, they don't want to give up the old gravy train.

    Although Rometty had an engineering degree, her backgrou

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