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... Read more

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... Read more