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IBM to acquire Confluent

(www.confluent.io)
443 points abd12 | 3 comments | 08 Dec 25 13:43 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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notepad0x90 ◴[08 Dec 25 15:01 UTC] No.46192971[source]▶
This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way?

Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic are doing, with in-house tools? They have a mature PowerPC (Power9+? now?)setup, lots of talent to make ML/LLMs work and lots of existing investment in datacenters and getting GPU-intense workloads going.

I don't disagree that this acquisition is good strategy, I'm just fascinated (Schadenfreude?) to witness the demise of confluent now. I think economists should study this, it might help avert larger problems.

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1. alienbaby ◴[08 Dec 25 17:48 UTC] No.46195332[source]▶
They gave up on watson about 18 months before llm's popped up, and they have simply just not got enough cash on hand to compete. While the big boys grew fantastically bigger over the past 15 years as cloud happened ibm fumbled time after time and shrank ever smaller, and is now desperately hoping it can stay relevant. but in the end they just haven't got the resources to compete on that stage anymore.
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2. rdtsc ◴[08 Dec 25 18:18 UTC] No.46195714[source]▶
The recent interview with Arvind had the “grapes are too green, anyway” energy. They missed the train because they were licking their Watson wounds. Then sorta regretted it but it’s too late.

Same thing happened with their cloud offering. They laughed at AWS, then tried to catch up, then missed and pivoted to “hybrid” (cloud and local).

3. sva_ ◴[08 Dec 25 22:08 UTC] No.46198310[source]▶
If they hadn't sold the ThinkPad (and related) brands I would care.