[fdye]

This is just using the AI hype as cover to not get slammed by the markets. If they came out and said "We are pausing hiring..." the markets would rightly be like "Man they are screwed..."

Expect to see more of this from zombie companies in the future, as long as they spend $20/mo on a ChatGPT subscription somewhere they are probably not violating SEC disclosures either.

[qbasic_forever]

Yep if you read what the CEO said the quote was that they "could" replace workers with AI over five years and as the tech improves. That's just pure speculation and bullshitting, like when Elon said Tesla cars will be fully self driving vehicles in five years. It's market pumping talk from a company with a vested interest in selling "AI" to enterprises.

[red-iron-pine]

Agreed. The article is so short and IBM didn't respond to comment. It's a blurb, a CYA for what's going to be an ugly quarterly report in a few weeks.

[trifurcate]

> If they came out and said "We are pausing hiring..." the markets would rightly be like "Man they are screwed..."

This hasn't been the case with the ongoing tech layoffs though? Investors for the most part congratulate these companies for diligently cutting costs in preparation of a recession.

[theRealMe]

That is the case for companies that overhired during the bull market. IBM, on the other hand, has been losing employee counts steadily for over a decade.

If a company that people are expecting to be losing relevance does a layoff, it’s still not a good sign.

[tempest_]

I don't even properly know what IBM is now that they spun a bunch of things off.

I guess they tossed all the services/consulting into Kyndryl and everything else got to stay blue.

[pdevr]

IBM has acquired Red Hat, UStream, Alchemy, Cloudant, SoftLayer, Vivisimo, Blekko, and a lot of other companies. They have, in fact, almost everything needed to build anything the FAANG companies are building.

The missing pieces (in my subjective opinion) are: (1) happy AND talented employees and (2) a rapid execution culture.

[azinman2]

You mean they acquired a bunch of infrastructure stuff, but no consumer products (unless you count failed blekko). That's not a fair match for anything that FAANG companies are building.

[pdevr]

They do have consumer products too, but by and large, yes. And a lot of consulting-oriented stuff too.

I was making the point that they have a solid platform available to build almost anything the FAANG companies have. Of course, they will have to build them. For that, they need to hire great engineers and they need to retain and keep them happy.

(Quick note: Traction is a whole different ballgame, but there are companies who gained initial traction through the customers of their business clients. In IBM's case, that is almost every major government agency and Fortune 500 businesses.)

[JAlexoid]

They spun off only Global Technology Services, which was only IT infrastructure consulting.

Most of the business consulting, including outsourcing software engineering, is still with IBM.

[MikeTheGreat]

So they're a consulting company now?

I know they got rid of OS's and laptops a while back; I assume they don't make or service mainframes/minicomputers anymore. Do they do any software/hardware development, or is it all consulting?

[giantg2]

I think they still have mainframes, but that's a few years ago that I'm remembering.

[red-iron-pine]

They ditched consumer electronics years ago; margins are razor thin and it's all made in China so just let em handle it.

Still plenty of hardware and software stuff done via IBM with POWER systems, AIX, etc. They were an early investor in Red Hat and now own it entirely.

[_fat_santa]

Through their various acquisitions over the years they are basically now a "Big 4" consulting Co with a name we typically don't associate with that industry

[literalAardvark]

In my neck of the woods they're still known as a massive overhirer.

I have a few contacts with them and mostly they just rested and (not) vested.

[d--b]

They don’t even have to spend anything on ChatGPT, they can say they’re using Watson!

[kneebonian]

You have to understand their competitive moat, DoD and especially Pentagon contracts.

Most companies don't have the capitalization, runway or people who are so badly broken as to go through the bidding process for something like that.

[treeman79]

Yep was at a small startup and the owner insisted we go with IBM, over the protest of everyone. Months of work and we got infrastructure moved over. Only to find out the stack we were sold on was being sunset. Owner insisted we move to the new stack. Month later we were on new stack. This happened twice more.

[ElfinTrousers]

"Small startup" and "IBM stack" are not things you hear of in combination that often and I guess this is one reason why.

[red-iron-pine]

Almost as bad as Oracle

[gitfan86]

Yes, they have done things like this before. IBM is good at PR.

[giantg2]

What else are they good at?

[jstarfish]

Selling consulting services to their own subsidiaries.

[alfalfasprout]

Exactly. As useful as ChatGPT is for a lot of menial tasks, people give humans far too little credit.

[newswasboring]

IBM is a public company, doesn't that mean they have to give some details to shareholders? I would hope so, this is a big ambitious plan, I hope they have to present an actual plan somewhere. You can't just say stuff, right?

[zod50]

But the market has actually rewarded companies pausing hiring and doing layoffs. In other words, if company is saving money by reducing fixed salary costs, market appreciates that move.

[belter]

But it seems Watson is concerned and looking for a new job...

[ElfinTrousers]

My first guess was, if they'd decided on a hiring freeze a year ago instead of now, they would have said it was because of NFTs.

[AshamedCaptain]

Dropbox gave more or less the same excuse a week ago...

[freetinker]

This is spot on.