New IBM CEO Arvind Krishna says hybrid cloud will be bigger than mainframes, services, middleware
- Reference: 1586239506
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/07/arvind_krishna_becomes_ibm_ceo_letter_to_staff/
- Source link:
Krishna was [1]anointed as IBM CEO in January 2020, when the company’s board made a surprise announcement that Virginia Rometty would become as executive chairman of the board until her retirement at the end of the year.
The new CEO assumed his post as planned on Monday, April, and IBM quickly pointed to a [2]LinkedIn post titled, “My first day as CEO - our journey together,” and billed as “the letter I shared with IBMers today about the public health crisis, IBM’s essential role in the world, and my commitments as the new CEO of IBM.”
The missive kicks off with best wishes to all during the coronavirus crisis, admiration for IBM’s response, and his belief the pandemic shows how important Big Blue technology is in its role of keeping commerce and healthcare running.
Then it swings into visionary gear: “I believe we can make IBM the most trusted technology partner of the 21st century,” Krishna wrote. “For this to happen, we have to ensure that IBM continues to innovate and lead in the transformational journeys our clients are on. Hybrid cloud and AI are two dominant forces driving change for our clients and must have the maniacal focus of the entire company.”
“IBM has already built enduring platforms in mainframe, services, and middleware. All three continue to serve our clients. I believe now is the time to build a fourth platform in hybrid cloud. An essential, ubiquitous hybrid cloud platform our clients will rely on to do their most critical work in this century. A platform that can last even longer than the others.”
Krishna also explained what he thinks are the three most important actions IBM needs to take, namely:
Deepen our understanding of IBM’s two strategic battles: the journey to hybrid cloud and AI. We all need to understand and leverage IBM’s sources of competitive advantage. Namely, our open source and security leadership, our deep expertise and trust, and the fact that we enable clients to build mission-critical applications once and run them anywhere.
Win the architectural battle in cloud. There’s a unique window of opportunity for IBM and Red Hat to establish Linux, containers and Kubernetes as the new standard. We can make Red Hat OpenShift the default choice for hybrid cloud in the same way that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the default choice for the operating system.
We all must be obsessed with continually delighting our clients. At every interaction, we must strive to offer them the best experience and value. The only way to lead in today’s ever-changing marketplace is to constantly innovate according to what our clients want and need.
To get there, Krishna has shuffled his executive deck.
Jim Whitehurst is now company president and will head IBM Strategy as well as the Cloud and Cognitive Software unit. Bridget van Kralingen will become senior veep of global markets, taking over from Martin Schroeter who has decided to retire but will continue to lead global industries and integrated accounts. Van Kralingen has been charged with “simplifying our go-to-market strategies across all business units as well as strengthening IBM’s client-centric culture.”
As we’ve detailed [3]here , Paul Cormier will become the CEO of Red Hat. New hire Howard Boville will clamber aboard in May to take on the role of senior veep of IBM’s Cloud Platform, in which he will oversee the IBM Cloud.
All of which sounds great. But IBM’s cloud is consistently rated as solid but less mature than its hyperscale rivals, while OpenShift already has plenty of competition.
Krishna knows that tech alone won’t win. His post calls for IBM to develop a culture informed by a growth mindset.
“Few companies have the trust, credibility and cumulative wisdom to change the fabric of society through technology the way that IBM can,” Krishna wrote.
“I love this company. In my 30+ years with IBM, I have seen first-hand the tremendous talent and dedication that IBMers possess. For all these reasons, I'm truly honored and humbled to be your CEO and to lead an iconic, storied and innovative company like IBM.” ®
Sponsored: [4]Choosing A Low-Code Vendor
[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/30/ibm_replaces_ceo_ginni_rometty/
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-first-day-ceo-our-journey-together-arvind-krishna/
[3] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/06/red_hat_ceo_paul_cormier/
[4] https://go.theregister.co.uk/tl/1936/-8579/choosing-a-low-code-vendor?td=wptl1936
I wonder if...
... he's reversed the "Not allowed to work from home policy" the past knob put in place.
if only IBM had bought into cloud early, you know, they could have bought a leader in Hybrid Cloud like Softlayer...
oh, wait..
that was under Ginni's watch, and she never spent a cent on datacenter, in fact she cut spending there, while all the competition, like Amazon & Microsoft were spending like crazy.
Too late Arvind, that ship has sailed.
Good luck with that
I wouldn't trust IBM to walk my dog.
"We all must be obsessed with continually delighting our clients. At every interaction, we must strive to offer them the best experience and value. The only way to lead in today’s ever-changing marketplace is to constantly innovate according to what our clients want and need."
1) Stop being obsessed with money (sure, make a profit, but not at the expense of quality of service)
2) Stop pissing them off with sub-standard support. SME should *mean* an SME.
3) They want what they paid for - give it to them instead of excuses why you can't
4) The "best experience and value" would suggest having experienced people to provide such value. Difficult to do when all the experienced staff are made redundant (back to money again)
What a pile of old bollocks!!!
What a pile of meaningless old bollocks!!! Lots of talk but no actual strategy.
IBM won't get anywhere if they don't start realising that the front-line staff are still the most important people. Not the 768,000 layers of white-collar dead wood between them and the CEO.
Few companies HAD the trust, ....
I think he got his tenses mixed up there.
Over the last 10 years has squandered its customers trust in order to meet quarterly revenue targets.
The cumulative wisdom has been fired and replaced with cheaper easier to bully youngsters.
I wish him luck but I think Ginny has hollowed out the once great company and its beyond recovery.
Still makes a ton of money of the ancient zOS platform.