No one ever got fired for buying IBM, unless you’re IBM
There’s an old adage in the IT world that no one ever gets fired for buying IBM. The problem was that it never said anything against firing IBM, especially if they botch things badly.
Categories: News
I worked for IBM for six years and I’m not surprised at this report. Reputation mythology can carry you for a very, very long time.
A Big Ouch for IBM.
While the company I work for is married to IBM, I won’t hesitate to call them out on a few faux pas that really cost the company I work for a lot of time and money. And then we talk about how much people spend on them verses other software companies and they wonder how companies like Microsoft got where they are today. I can think of a number of times where I would loved to have developed on SQL Server instead of DB2, but was forced to make everything play nice with the company standards. There are times where I could buy servers for half the cost or less and save the company tonnes of money, yet due to the marriage factor, my company continues to pump money into big blue.
I will say this, some of their hardware products have been extremely rugged and lasted well beyond their operational life. But their software products have been the biggest pain I have ever had to deal with.
@nucrash
IBM’s hardware can be extremely durable. I’ve seen examples of that.
anon comment from my friend who works for that team:
“IBM underbid for the State of Texas account, so to break even they have to understaff and provide “cost-effective solutions,” which means no new hardware, software, etc. even in situations where it’s desperately needed. State agency employees are bitter that many of their workmates lost their jobs to IBM. They also feel like they were handling their servers better than IBM. That is a huge ongoing debate–sometimes true, sometimes not, depending on the agency. In the end, everyone hates everyone. ”
I think this highlights a tend of service providers coming in an underbidding on-site staff, promising to save costs and keep the service good or even make it better, when in reality they can really do neither.