by Brenda J. Christie
In his January 31, 2020 article, "IBM Follows Microsoft Best Practice with New CEO", Bob Enderle gives a rather brutal assessment of IBM's prior CEOs. To his credit, there is merit in his statement that a technology company needs a CEO with both a technical background and an ability to have and execute a strategic vision of where the company needs to go. Although he alludes to the turbulent, often dire conditions under which a CEO takes the position, that aspect seems downplayed in this writer's opinion. The occasion for Bob Enderle's article was the announcement of Ginni Rometty's retirement from IBM.
Challenging Times
For example, the article does point out that the IBM Ginni Rometty inherited had been decimated by cost-cutting moves perpetrated by her predecessor, Sam Palmisano, but then faults her for not having a vision. Probably the largest challenge Ms. Rometty faced in 2012 as she took over as CEO was the changing landscape of computing. That landscape largely included movement to cloud computing and away from the mainframe. With cloud computing, companies no longer needed costly investments in mainframe and related infrastructure. Instead, companies could hand over the maintenance of hardware and software updates and related human-resource cost to an external company. Companies could reduce their expenses by outsourcing to a Cloud Service Provider, as well as improve their ability to react to changes in the market more quickly.
