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The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon? by [Cringely, Robert]

The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon? Kindle Edition

by Robert Cringely (Author), Lars Foster (Illustrator), Katy Gurley (Editor)

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IBM is in serious trouble. Big Blue, as the company is known, tends to rely for its success on magical thinking but that magic ran out a long time ago. The company got in trouble back in the 1990s and had to hire for the first time an outside CEO, Lou Gerstner, to save the day. Gerstner pushed IBM into services with spectacular results but this hurt the company, too. As services have became commoditized IBM could only compete by offshoring the work and quality suffered. The other negative impact of Gerstner was his compensation which was for the first time in IBM
history very high. Only the Watson family had become rich running IBM with later CEOs like John Opel and John
Akers living comfortable lives with lots of perks, but they never got BIG RICH. That changed with Gerstner.
Sam Palmisano an IBM lifer followed Gerstner as CEO and followed, too, the Gerstner playbook. Palmisano retired three years ago with a retirement package worth $241 million, replaced by IBM's first woman CEO, Ginni Rometty, who certainly expects a comparable golden parachute. In order to achieve these numbers, though, IBM has essentially sacrificed both its customers and employees. In order to have ever growing earnings per share the company has cut labor to the bone, off-shored everything it can, dropped quality, deliberately underbid contracts to win them then not performed. IBM's acquisition policy is one of buying companies to get their sales then cutting costs to the bone and under-delivering. This and share buybacks have kept earnings growing until this house of cards recently began to fall.
Ginni Rometty, who will end up taking the fall for Palmisano's flawed strategy, has stated a very specific earnings goal for 2015 that she will destroy the company to achieve if she must. This book how IBM fell from grace, where it is headed, and what specifically can be done to save the company before it is too late.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert X. Cringely has been a Silicon Valley journalist and character for more than 30 years. An early employee of iconic companies including Apple and Adobe Systems, Cringely began his career as an engineer then transitioned into reporting and analysis, first at InfoWorld and since 1997 as one of the first Internet bloggers, first at pbs.org and now at cringely.com. His work has appeared in magazines and newspapers throughout the world including Forbes, The New York Times, Newsweek, MIT Technology Journal and many others. In addition to InfoWorld he has worked as a columnist for Inc. and Worth magazines and ASCII magazine in Japan. His previous book, Accidental Empires, was published in 18 languages. His television documentaries made primarily for PBS and UK Channel 4 have aired in more than 60 countries. Cringely lives in Santa Rosa, California with his lovely wife and three young sons.

Product details

File Size: 3731 KB
Print Length: 203 pages
Publisher: NeRDTV. LLC (June 3, 2014)
Publication Date: June 3, 2014
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00KRHWZ22
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

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Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #329,410 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #287 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Money > Biography & History > Company Histories
- #1173 in Books > Business & Money > Biography & History > Company Profiles
- #104315 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction

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Customer Reviews

140

3.6 out of 5 stars

5 star		34%
4 star		26%
3 star		16%
2 star		13%
1 star		11%

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Top Customer Reviews

Read the book in less than 2 hours.... it's that good.

ByMark Woolfsonon June 4, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

As a former IBM'er with a tenure running from 2002 through 2012 I can say that I have seen and heard a lot of what Rob has stated. Much of what he asserted in the services arena I have personally witnessed in some form. Some of the soundbites that came to mind as I was reading it would simply put the jaws some [reading this book] would have on the floor - through it.

I found nothing in this book that was false. It's about time this came out for the public to see.

I sure do hope a few influential people look at this book and question IBM executives, and then question them some more. Eventually, their playbook will be emptied and all that would be left is the IBM'er that needs to truly illustrate what is in his/her heart and mind to make any real progress.

33 comments 47 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

The right intent; poor arguments

BySnowfall86on July 14, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Cringely's objective is clear and accurate - IBM is a poorly managed company that somehow skirts media criticism. IBM is one of the world's largest companies, and outside of stock analysts there seems to be a general unawareness of the global technology leader's decline from within.

As a regular reader of his blog, I was very excited to see he was writing a book about IBM's recent history and decline. Unfortunately the arguments within the book do not provide enough evidence to support his claims. I agree with Cringely on several points, however this will do little to sway those who oppose his views.

I wish there were more research and better editing. Where is the data that shows IBM is behind in the cloud? Why do stock buybacks fail in the long-term, and can you provide some examples? I want information from the source that proves IBM is in decline. Cringely seems to rely on employee water cooler talk and "an old friend of a friend who's a CTO" as factual basis for his complaints about IBM.

There are some examples of botched customer contracts, but we never hear from the customers themselves - just what Cringely wants to hear from internal employee comments. We are also not presented with a pro-IBM opinion aside from a mass employee email in 2007. Even in a book that is anti-IBM management, you need to understand the IBM executive strategy in order to further prove your point. Instead of quoting IBM management and providing counterpoints, Cringely just calls them political conservatives (??) with too many MBA's. The book ends up reading like an extended blog post written by a disgruntled employee.

Finally, I question the editing. I understand a mistake in a self-published book, but it just looks bad when you keep seeing the wrong "their" or "effect" used. And I think the employee comments could have been better summarized. In closing, while I agree with Cringely's main summary, the problems within IBM could have been detailed much better.

0Comment 30 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Cringely and IBM are similar, in a way :)

ByNot Meeon June 7, 2014

Format: Kindle Edition

The bad:
Well, for starters, the book is only about 70 pages long. The rest are readers' comments copied from his blog. That's 150 pages of comments.

The book is rushed and unfinished, it was obviously not well edited or proof-read. The quality of the writing could be better too. Hyperlinks do not work, pages do not have page numbers, no bibliography, and so on, and so on. Very rushed.

I honestly expected deep analysis or insights. Not very impressed.

So in a way Cringely and IBM are similar, they sell you one thing, but deliver less and of poor quality :)

The good:

Unfortunately, he is right about IBM, and his info about IBM is 100% correct.
----

You do not really need to buy this book, just read his blog.

11 comment 69 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Really an important book for anyone considering IBM to read.

ByBook buyeron June 5, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I have worked with IBM for 20 years or more and have seen their decline into a high cost, yet low skill body shop full of cheap (to IBM but not to the customer) foreign workers. It's a pathetic descent into mediocrity. I've cleaned up their messes many times and am engaged in just such a project right now. Also the way they treated their US employees is despicable.

0Comment 32 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Right about the current mismanagement. Weak on recommendations for correction.

ByMCDon June 9, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

After a decade in IBM sales, it was a pleasure to take the package and get out. The fundamental points of mismanagement, especially the total focus on Earnings Per Share versus long term investments in technical capability ring very true to me. I thought the employee comments were interesting but he included more than necessary. If you tracked IBM over the years you have seen most of these types of comments before. His recommended changes were weak and seemed at times to show a shallow understanding of this part of the industry. I liked his recommended check list for customers to challenge their service providers. I would add that internal IT staff should be challenged with the same list. My experience is that almost no service provider internal or external would be able to meet his challenge as well as they should and neither is likely to be able to with the amount of money that customers are currently willing to spend on IT.

The book will be important as it will likely get good media attention due to Cringely's notoriety and should create additional pressures to IBM's stock price which is truly the one item that the Senior Management is concerned with.

0Comment 15 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

If you want to make sense of modern business, read this book.

ByBradleyon June 5, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I've seen it too often. It's like the movie "Around the World in 80 Days", where the ship runs out of fuel so Phileas Fogg buys the ship and tears down the ship and throws it into the boiler.

This book also exposes off-shoring for the short-sighted sham that it often is.

0Comment 13 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Five Stars

Fine insight

Published 4 months ago by R. Gilchrist

The needs for change

Great book about IBM and Robert X Cringely really puts a finger at the spot where IBM needs to change to adapt or go down.

Published 5 months ago by Amazon Customer

Vintage Cringely

As always, Cringely is very readable. I knock one star off because a large chunk of the e-book is not from Cringely but (interesting & informative) comments from his blog on the...Read more

Published 10 months ago by Gordon Zaft

Two Stars

Nothing new, given that you read the authors blog.

Published 11 months ago by daniel lema

A disorganized, redundant mess of a book that was still somewhat enjoyable

I have a real respect for the sheer brainpower of Robert X. Cringely. I've read his blog for years now, and enjoy his writing a great deal.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Jason Dunn

Waste of funds and time.

This book is all title; no substantive analysis.

Published 1 year ago by Joe Thomas

Forget it. There are much better books on IBM out there. This is one to avoid at all costs.

Muddled, confusing and does not come to grips with the subject.

Published 1 year ago by Eddie Russell

Five Stars

You can watch Cringely predictions playing out every day.

Published 1 year ago by Joseph T. Galietto

Four Stars

interesting - led to search of similar books

Published 1 year ago by Kent DeHond

It was well written and pretty much accurate

I bought this book because I worked for IBM 36 1/2 years and I was curious about the accuracy of this book. It was well written and pretty much accurate.

Published 1 year ago by Al G.

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