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

I'm a tech professional who specialized in IBM/Lotus software from 1996 through about 2012. I've read Robert Cringely's I, Cringely columns over the years, and watched how he documented the decline of IBM as a company where employees were respected and organizations received value for their money. The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon? is Cringely's effort to take all his columns over time and present the material in a cohesive and comprehensive manner. With very few exceptions, I have to agree that his assessment is dead on (based on my observations and interactions with others), and the future does not look bright based on the path IBM is taking.There are a number of factors that are contributing to the decline. One of the worst problems is the relentless cost cutting that lays off experienced employees and shifts their jobs overseas to untrained personnel. The problem is that while the trench workers are cut and/or overworked, the management structure and layers just continue to grow. The drive to get to $20 EPS by 2015 has decimated the morale and capabilities of staff, and it's tragic that no one in IBM management has stepped up to say that's a meaningless goal by a prior CEO and it's gutting the company. If there were only a handful of (ex-)employees sharing bad experiences, it might be tempting to think that it's only a minority of people who are complaining. But the numbers of stories are huge, and the examples are too many to be isolated incidents.The current CEO is tossing big bucks at "the next big thing" to try and restore IBM to a dominant position as an industry leader. But until/unless those pan out (Watson and cloud come to mind), their execution on existing software and services continues to go downhill as they don't have the experienced staff any longer as they were "too expensive". The future will tell whether IBM or Cringley ended up being right on the outcomes, so it's not as the death of IBM is a done deal. But history is littered with large tech companies that are no longer around, and IBM is not "too big to fail."If you are (or were) interested about or associated with IBM at some point, The Decline and Fall of IBM is an interesting read. The second half of the book is padded (in my opinion) with blog comments he's received on his articles. You could easily read those online if you were interested. But the first half of the book makes for some persuasive arguments.Disclosure:Obtained From: AmazonPayment: Purchased

The conflict between managers, owners, and employees, coupled the short-term interests, is destroying many American Businesses today. Cringley's documentary dives deep into one concrete example - IBM - before the company falls apart entirely. It is a short read, it is a quick read, it is a compelling read, and, for anyone at a large company, who supplies large companies, or even in equities market, it should probably be required reading.Cringley's work on IBM is something like the public whistle-blowing on Enron -- only five years *before* it fell apart.Seriously, required reading. I wish I could get this into the high school business curricula of every school in the United States.As for style, yes. The book can be a little over the top at times. Some of the book can be considered "bloggy" - but it's still a deal at twice the price. Five Stars.

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. It's enjoyable watching him ponder things out loud, and make speculations about the industry. This ebook, however, was a scattered mess. And that's being charitable. It reads like a series of individual blog posts, with little thought put into organization or editing for redundancy. Perhaps that's all it was meant to be, but I was honestly expecting more. There's some great thinking here, but it needed the strong hand of an editor to reign it all in. And having over 50% of the book be blog comments seems lazy. Organize them, curate them, present them. Don't just slap them on the end like that.

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.

After discussing this book with people who deal with IBM as a service provider to their large projects, we all laughed our heads off. A great read.

The worst ever book I have read. Completely biased, indicates authors narrow mindedness and complete unawareness of the subject of offshorability.

Great book, must read for anyone who has dealt with IBM from within or from the outside as a customer.

What a fantastic read!! The book clearly presents a chronology of IBM through the years with utmost accuracy. As an employee I feel reading this is like sitting in a bar after work, and discussing the insanity of my day to day trawl with someone who can associate with my experiences and frustrations.The Ouroboros feeling that IBM has of infinity is so ill conceived and it's lack of awareness of its own failings is carefully analysed to precision. Although the book focuses on the American side of the business, it realises the global impacts too.For anyone wanting to understand the company mode of operation or for workers to feel comfort in knowing they are not alone in their frustrations, then this is the book for you.Execs are likely to rate this poorly though.

Extremely detailed insigths about IBM and its 'internal' behaviour, the discrepancies between external view (from customers) and internal perception (from IBMers), and the hard times to cope with a business environment where IBM ethics is no longer a real value but an inhibitor to win against the competition.Lot of open and good questions, plenty of very good food for thoughs, including the discussions and the comments at the end of the book.A little bit biased on the view from US labor perspective (lost again Asian employemnt), never the less very applicable at a world wide level.