In October 2020 IBM announced that it would be divesting its IT infrastructure business in order to focus on its “open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities”. In the last few years, while making significant progress in some technology areas, IBM has somewhat missed the boat in others, notably cloud. Claims of generating 27% of revenue from cloud today are somewhat questionable. This report examines the motivations behind making such a move, its likely impact on the market, the reasons for IBM’s ‘cloud-washing’ of revenue, its potential to make the shift from services to product company, and the prognosis for the company after the split, particularly in the context of efforts to seize the new cloud-to-edge opportunity.
In October 2020 IBM announced that it would be divesting its IT infrastructure business in order to focus on its “open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities”. In the last few years, while making significant progress in some technology areas, IBM has somewhat missed the boat in others, notably cloud. Claims of generating 27% of revenue from cloud today are somewhat questionable.
This report examines the motivations behind making such a move, its likely impact on the market, the reasons for IBM’s ‘cloud-washing’ of revenue, its potential to make the shift from services to product company, and the prognosis for the company after the split, particularly in the context of efforts to seize the new cloud-to-edge opportunity.
