Last Thursday I was invited to have dinner with Nick Donofrio who is Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology at IBM. The event was organized by HR to revitalize the technical community in our organization. Among the persons invited where some of the best technical resources from the different organizations that form the company (ITS, BCS, AS, IGS and SWG).It was a nice experience. Nick certainly knows IBM in depth. He has been part of the core team for decades now and he has been responsible for taking many far reaching decisions such at moving the mainframes from bipolar to CMOS technology, a decision that in retrospect certainly saved the company when it was going through tough times back in the early nineties.Few persons within IBM can explain the company’s strategy as well as Nick or Steve Mills. That is why it is nice to talk with them because it becomes easier to understand the big picture, something that is not always clear when you spend the day working on a small part of the business (in my case, software).One of the things that bothers me is that at IBM we lack a CEO who is able to articulate a clear and compelling technology vision to our customers, the press and the employees. That is why you will always hear about technology superstars Ellison, Jobs, Schwartz and even Gates (who doesn’t have many interesting things to say lately) but never about Sam Palmisano, IBM’s current Chairman, CEO and President, in case you were wondering who he was (as many of our customers).I shared my concern with Nick Donofrio and he told me about all the superstars we have at IBM who provide that technical vision and prowess that we IBMers like to share with our customers in order to create a competitive advantage that smaller competitors usually find hard to overcome. Most of them are part of our large team of IBM Fellows, that includes luminaries such as Grady Booch as well as our army of Distinguished Engineers. They are the ones who set at communicate IBM’s vision, a task that in most tech companies is in part the responsibility of the CEO.Nick is right, IBM has a great senior technical team and I would love to become part of it. Right now I have to focus on becoming a senior certified software it architect, something that I expect to achieve next year.Still, I would love to have a CEO that is respected in the technology community for his vision. After all, running IBM shouldn’t just be about the financials. Shareholders may disagree but in my opinion it takes a great technological leader to grow a tech company, not a banker. That is my opinion, both as an employee and as a shareholder.
December 26th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I am publishing a comment from an IBMer in the EMEA region who wishes to remain anonymous and contacted me through e-mail.
Huibert,
Many thanks for writing your blog entry. There are many of us who have become very disappointed in Palmisano’s recent performance — I haven’t even seen him in a video for over a year. For all I know, he could be spending all his time on the golf course or facing long-term hospitalisation. People directed the criticism that Gerstner ran IBM like a mutual fund, and I feel Palmisano has continued this strategy. The criticism that those close to the top make is that, whereas Gerstner was a genuine, hard-nosed strategist, there is no real analytical insight behind Palmisano’s thinking, and he keeps his friends in jobs long after they should have been sacked.
I believe this industry will continue to be led by inventor-businessmen such as Gates, McNealy and Ellison. The problem with running IBM as a mutual fund is that you end up having no long-term commitment to any individual market. Competitors know that IBM will soon give up after a
couple of years of disappointing results in a particular market. All they have to do is hang on longer. Arguably HP is reaping that benefit by hanging on longer in the PC market. In my view, a key measure of IBM’s declining influence in the IT industry is the percentage of shelf space taken up by IBM products in the IT section of bookshops. 20 years ago, that could be anywhere from 30 to 50%. Today, I’d guess it’s rather less than 5%. Goodness knows when the last time that a book about an IBM product made the Amazon IT books top 10. It’s very sad.
Best wishes, and a merry Christmas.
While I do not agree with everything this person says (I personally totally support the decision to sell the PC company to Lenovo and I know that Sam Palmisano was in Mexico recently visiting customers), I think that this mail clearly shows some malaise within IBM with what many perceive as a lack of technological leadership. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, as it impacts negatively our ability to hire and retain technological talent.