J.D. Curtis :: The Iris Bloodline
by Volker Weber
Multiple people have sent me this:
He came by helicopter. No one was sure where it landed, but they heard it fly in. He brought several of his direct reports and a company-wide meeting was held to announce something. IBM’s CEO then announced that he had just spent $3.5 billion to buy the 70 (!) people in the room. Well, not them, their company. Along with them came thousands of others working for the parent company Lotus, whose funds had been used to sustain the development of the product those 70 were so proud of.
IBM would leave this team alone for an exceptionally long time and help Lotus build out quite a business with the product it created. Many years later, things looked bleak:
So in stark contrast to how things began – and I do not only speak for myself – the environment became a progressively depressing, downward spiral.
And then, in late 2017 a white knight appeared and bought the team and their assets. This makes you understand, why (some) developers are so happy to now work for HCL.
I remember the year when an IBM General Manager celebrated groundbreaking features that had been present in Outlook many years ago, or would announce an on-premises product without ever starting any real work on it. For many years, IBM had only been blowing hot air to keep the maintenance money flowing, while cutting cost at all corners. Now somebody has reignited the engine and is moving ahead.
Is there still any life left in the horse they are flogging? That's only up to the customers to decide. Your guess is as good as mine. Not very.
