IBM to acquire Confluent

> they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products

I worked with IBMers. The main priority for a lot of them is to ensure continuous employment for themselves and their buddies. They'd add unnecessary complexity to a product to stretch out the development for another couple of years. And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks. They can't compete.

> And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks.

Ultra-based. We should all be so lucky.

They will die happy knowing they did more than just create shareholder value.

I'll say this about IBM: because it's so old, it was the most diverse company I ever worked for- including age, nationality, race, sex, and any other category you can think of. Basically you had all types of people in all stages of life, not just young white workaholic tech-bros. The founders are long gone, so everyone there (including CEO) is a professional- meaning nobody has any kind of personal attachment to the company. We were all in the same boat, as it were. When your older coworker suddenly disappears due to a stroke, it puts things in perspective.

The fast-paced startup is really the hack, combining the energy of youth with the ego-mania of their founders. Ask yourself, is it healthy?

Anyway, IBM's customers tend to be other fortune 100s and governments- basically other similar organizations, and my experience was that we took care of them pretty well. The products were not pretty (no Steve Jobs-like person to enforce beauty), and rather complex due to all the enterprise requirements. But they were quite high quality, particularly the hardware.

Sounds like the German government. Or probably other governments as well.

>> Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks

Found my dream job :-)

I worked with IBM several decades ago for a customer project, and the solution suggested by an IBM'er for backing up a NoSQL database (Lotus Notes) on a daily basis was to translate and migrate the data to a relational one (DB2), then use a DB2 tape backup system to back it up.

When I pointed out that this was a stupid way to do it, they openly told me that they just wanted to sell DB2.

You mean you DONT work a leisurely 6-8 hour day with breaks? I thought everybody did that until there was some urgent firefighting

The way you put it, looks like IBM is a pretty good place to work at

Aside from having like 9 managers, 8 of whom are totally purposeless in your professional life, then yeah it’s not bad. The benefits are good.

I worked with some pretty talented and dedicated people at IBM. The “hop on a 2am call to put out a fire because they happened to check their email and they owed the person on pager duty a beer” kind of people.

That company was a red tape rats nest, but that’s management’s fault. And you get lazy people or shit departmental culture at various points in nearly every company, but painting a tens-of-thousands strong workforce with that brush is ridiculous.

"Actual 9 to 5", meaning the standard 40 hour work week?

If someone is telling you to work more than 40 hours a week in a salaried position, and they're not paying out the nose, you're being scammed.

We should all be so blessed. :pray:

Sounds miserable if you like solving real problems.

RSUs :) //Steve Jobs e-mail smiley

I do advisory for pre-Series A startups as a last ditch effort to save them.

I do not get the unified industry delusion about "why X company has a bad product". It is usually either one of two things: comfort or ego. Everyone knows that but do not want to say it out loud.

I have seen these happen time and time again. Companies that are cash cow, do not care to do a better job. There is no incentive to do a better job. Moreover, the recurring thing is that if I did something different, I wouldn't have been this much successful in the first place.

The rest of the smart consultants walk on eggshells. They hint at stuff but never want to bite the hand that feeds them because the clients would rather fire you than be challenged.

It is not an IBM thing; it's generic business thing to some degree. I really have to call this a delusion. Good consultants submit generic reports that just tell them what they want to hear. It is not you; it is the economy. Stupid consultants that are well-meaning tell them they should be the best on competitor intel. Do you not think some stupid person did not approach IBM to do what Oracle or AWS is doing? Of course, they did, and they were fired immediately.

The best consultants are less of a consultant and more of a therapist.

After doing only four-month projects for the entire year, this year's realization was that nobody in the industry wants to do better. Everyone is in their place because of ego or a perceived sense of success. Or because of a grand conspiracy theory. IBM has a significant number of government contracts, so they are set for life because the vast majority government IT systems are pigeonholed into IBM systems. The acquisition is to tell the shareholders that we are so successful that we can literally buy companies. We do not even care to do things. Whatever the new thing is, we will buy it at some point.

The awe induced when standing in front of a brand new, kitted out x95 frame with all its drawers full and that special shade of IBM blue on everything is definitely something. Pull out the HMC and just think about how many decades of R&D and experience and tears went into the entire system.

no you need to be a "cracked engineer" working "7 days a week in our house/office in SF"

at least they are honest? Also "thanks for the tape backup idea anyway"

depends, "out the nose" is relative based on what else you could be doing and what else is out there

and no job i've had considered 9-5 40 hours after a 1 hour lunch break

Tape backups were the norm back then.

They were only honest because I was working for an IBM Business Partner. They wouldn't disclose it to the customer.

It's not stupid when you can bill for $1Mi instead of $100k ;)

I sure do, if I'm at my computer longer the work quality goes way down. I'm thinking about it much longer each day than working on it.

Well, I don't know anyone who takes a full 1 hour lunch break -- back when I was in the office, I reckon it was more like 30-45 minutes? But people at all 4 office jobs I've worked did a standard 9-5 schedule.

But yes, "out the nose" is qualified by your particular situation. For me, that might be 2-3x my normal salary, which would mean I could take breaks for a few years or retire sooner.

I think the driving force behind the look of the recent mainframes is from IBM's Italian designer, Camillo Sassano:

https://www.idsa.org/profile/sassano/

Well there's a whole group, but Camillo is the guy I worked with when I was there.

hustle culture bro, everyone needs 996

we are achieving true egalitarianism here, everyone can be a slave regardless of color, creed, or origin