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Virginia Rometty Selected As Next CEO of IBM
itwbennett writes "IBM will start the new year with a new CEO. Virginia (Ginni) Rometty, who built up IBM Global Services, will be the company's first female CEO."
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I thought IBM purely consisted of gay successful men. That's how their songs put it...
Never heard of her until 10 minutes ago, but sounds like she should be able to keep IBM afloat - unlike HP
Can't wait to see her welcoming email! Which should arrive in the next 6 weeks or so, when her copy of Lotus Notes finally finishes starting up.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Here we are celebrating another newly minted female CEO of a powerhouse corporation. Meanwhile, with the other side of our mouths, we're constantly bemoaning the fact that most Fortune 500 CEOs are greedy parasites, not to mention the large minority who seem to be sociopaths (and not in a figurative way, either).
It reminds me of that small number of feminists who seem to view sexual liberation not in terms of respect, mature dialogue, and winning their freedom from chauvanism, but merely as the freedom for women to be as sex-crazed and/or misandropic as some men are chauvanist and misogynistic.
Perhaps we shouldn't be so proud of women breaking into a job dominated by assholes? Are we assuming that women, unlike the men with whom they successfully competed to get these jobs, will suddenly be nice people when they're the ones on top? I try to understand when people say the pendulum is still swinging, that women need to make further explicit gains before we can just call it all equal, but I still wish we could reserve admiration and outright celebration for simply people who do good things, rather than continuing to break it out into Men and Women.
At some point the lauding of the "first female" this and the constant keeping of score has to stop if you want to say you achieved real equality.
Why didn't the IBM board offer gagillions to some flash CEO from somewhere else?
Good luck Ginni.
And IBM begins collapsing in 3 2 1...
I don't know if IBM will collapse... but their stock sure did in the last 1/2 hour of trading. Wonder if that has anything to do with this news item?
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
Set the strategic direction for the company, make decisions that those below her are too afraid to, meet with the heads of business partner companies .... what do you think a CEO does in general?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Let me get this straight. So, in order to become a CEO, you don't need to have solid technical knowledge, you just have to be "assertive", "proactive" and all that crap. Am I correct?
I don't have a clue about the daily activities of a CEO.
...of former female CEOs, who have all been mediocre (think Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman). I wish her all the best.
The new CEO is the old head of their services division and oversaw the PriceWaterhouseCoopers takeover in 2002. I think this means that in the coming years, IBM will make a lot more money with a lot less engineers, thanks to their lucrative services business.
If you ask me, it's just a matter of time before the slow death of the server group accelerates into high-speed PC/consumer business style death.
Hold that stock.
Congratulations to Virginia Rometty on her promotion. The glass ceiling isn't shattered yet, but it's cracking.
Is she going to be getting a 25:1 Canadian or Euro style pay package, or is she taking the hundreds to one ratio of many US executives that people are complaining about? The article doesn't say.
IBM is a great place to work or contract. I really enjoyed the time I spent working on a project with them.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
No, at any company large enough to really warrant having a CEO, being technically capable of the work the business is in is almost certainly irrelevant. CEO is a strategic/interface role.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Not really. A drop of $1 over a shareprice of $180 isn't a steep drop. In fact, most the market did somewhat fall that day. Looking at the monthly trend however, IBM and Apple are the only ones that have had a significant dip over the last month (google finance on IBM).
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Not really.
It has been very volatile lately, going up and down several dollars for no real reason.
I am on calls 2 or 3 times a month where she is also on the call. She seems well liked by the technical side of the house and is very approachable.
Won't catch me calling her Ginnie, I stick to ma'am and Sir for VP's and above if we are on the clock.
Better her than some other female execs we have.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
IBM Closing price on Sept 23: $169.16
IBM Closing price on Oct 25: $180.36
I am not sure where the 'significant dip' comes from.
That was a particularly flattering picture. This one, not so much. Photoshop? Who knows?
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
That's not photoshop. It's simply keeping a 20-year-old picture on file.
For what it's worth, she's still not unattractive in the newer photo.
And if David Kappos' recent move is any indication, her next big step is clear: head up the US Patent and Trademark Office when Kappos leaves. I'm guessing that IBM would love this move because there she can better serve IBM's interests against those of the public. Kappos, current USPTO Director, was former IBM vice president and assistant general counsel of "intellectual property" law. IBM holds the most patents. First-to-file undoubtedly helps large firms like IBM because large firms hire lots of lawyers to file all sorts of patent applications. The more patents IBM holds, the more IBM can cross-license their way out of any threatened patent litigation by threatening countersuit and then negotiating a patent license.
Digital Citizen
be the next Gerstner. I just realized that she was fundamental to the offshoring of the company and the selling of the divisions as much as Palmisano. I predict that IBM is the next ATT and watson will be the next Bell Labs. Gutted for short sales in the market place.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You can see the anger stamped into her forehead, as if she were a Klingon or attacked by a Tostitos press.
Lets see. They offshored a number of their tech jobs to people that were not ready for it. They moved hardware production offshore and then were forced to sell teh divisions to the same ppl that were stealing them blind on tech. As it is, I suspect that had Palmisano remained at IBM for another year or two, he would have sold Watson to China.
Sadly, rometty is not much different since she was at the core of the sell offs. The end of IBM was started 10 years ago.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Since that time I've seen them outsourcing their employees jobs, and I don't know who are their customers anymore. I've seen them lose some remarkable talent to "early retirement" programs. I've seen them sell division after division that were core components of their culture and their business. At one time I felt like even when I wasn't working for them, I knew who IBM was and what they were trying to achieve. Now... I don't. I think they're some sort of storage company.
Anyway, I wish her the best of luck with her... storage company. I'm sure that she'll make ONE BILLION DOLLARS for herself.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Any nerd can fap to scat pr0n.
This woman has the power to order the upgrade of Watson to achieve sapience.
>no technical knowledge.
She started as an engineer and rose through the ranks. Promoted from within. A rarity.
Straight off you assume she's another Carly or Meg. I think you should take your stereotypes and shove them squarely up your arse.
--
BMO
female primates are way worse than the males; it has to be genetic and it also went on to the humans! females hold on to stuff for a long time and will do nasty things during or finally at the end of that time; won't even be a logical connection, just wham! out from nowhere comes some vindictive thing from the past. at least males deal with it upfront and get over it... that male aggression has a few good sides (just a FEW.)
obviously, there are exceptions, we are not totally run by our genes.
how about human teens? when stuff can still be acted out and self control is weak (that is before we jailed them for being kids, now they fear ...well if they think ahead at all they hold back.) The males can be split up in a fight; especially by a female -- but the fighting females can easily harm anybody who gets in their path. Seen it. heard about it from teachers. ask one, they'll tell you about it. even really upset males it comes down to a chest thumping power show even when elevated with weapons its mostly just a show like apes making noise and throwing sticks.. females will fight to the actual death; if not, they may harm or kill the other's offspring later. good reason to be sure and fight all out now...
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The organizations that still use mainframes are up-time fanatics with business models that suffer when a system is unavailable for a few minutes. As a result, they're so conservative that if they were running the country we'd still be under British rule. As long as mainframes work, they'll keep using them rather than risk changing to a different system.
Note: I'm an IBM employee, but this is my personal opinion, not IBM's. Technically speaking, corporations don't have opinions, except maybe "more money good, less money bad".
-- Support a free market in the field of government
The GP is saying that their shareprice has sunk heavily due to the appointment of the new CEO who is female. I am saying that their shareprice hasn't dumped since the appointment. I did say that Apple and IBM were the two companies in the bunch that had a bit of a bad spell over the last month.
IBM shareprice Oct 14th was $189. Now it is $180.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Stereotypes exist for a reason, but I certainly haven't given her a chance, so point taken.
That is the last 10 days, not month. If you look at the whole month, the price went up.
You only needed to know that she led the Sales division. IBM always gave a lot of credit and power to its sales force, and its CEOs are usually those who held her position.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
She was rewarded because she was the director of the Sales division. It's really common for IBM to grant the CEO badge to whoever led Sales. If an extraterrestrial entity had been in her position, it would have been elected instead.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Who cares what she looks like. If you want pretty turn on the TV. What do you want, Kim Kardashian as CEO?
Yep. 10 years ago, my IBM GS position went to Puna, India. I was offered something in Armonk, across the country from where I lived. Took the package, ended the unhappiest 3 years of my professional life, and never looked back. What a miserable, miserable place to work. 7 managers in 3 years.
As Oscar Wilde said - by the age of 50 everyone has the face they deserve.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
I don't consider myself a feminist by any means, but I imagine it's a bit frustrating that a discussion of a male CEO rarely ever involves talking about their looks, yet it's one of the primary topics when discussing female CEO's.
Yeah, Sculley worked really well at Apple.
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Gee, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue isn't enough, you want to screw up a company too?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Looks like Val Kilmer in drag.
But seriously.... I'm sure she's a very nice lady.
THL phish sticks
Former IBMer Bob Moffat, who was head of the Systems & Technology Group, was being groomed for the top job. But he got himself involved in an insider trading ring. Not for personal profit, but some careless chit-chat at a dinner party about Sun's finances, which IBM was considering to buy at the time.
So he got canned, and rightly so. If you are smart enough for the top job, you'd better be smart enough to watch what you say. Ginni will be subject to all sorts of scrutiny by the press in he coming months. IBM has probably already checked to see what she has under her fingernails.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Nine weeks. OS/2 has to start first.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Sorry to heat that. I know others that got burned as well.
I worked for IBM watson (via Colorado) back in 1996 ( or was it 94?) when akers was fired and Gerstner was brought in. At the time, we were about to open source OS2. Gerstner killed that idea quickly, which bummed me out. However, while it damaged OS2, IBM was brought back to being a decent a company. I was gone by the time that Palmisano took over and glad that I was. That guy has gutted the company.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Are you suggesting that what made Jobs succeed as Apple's CEO was being a good homebrew computer engineer? What made him work out was being a perfectionist asshole who drove others to succeed.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
>As Oscar Wilde said - by the age of 50 everyone has the face they deserve George Orwell, actually.
Maybe she will fix that. IBM Services has been killing it, performance wise.
Only if she goes all Fiorina and decides to change everything that makes IBM successful.
Does anyone care to compare her with Carly Fiorina?
That's the real disa^H^H^H^H check we need.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
That already happened, long ago.
-----------------
1 - Take care of your customers.
2 - Take care of your employees.
3 - The profits will take care of themselves.
T.J. Watson, Jr.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Was that the reason for increased IBM training programs this year about specifically *not* talking about anything that might lead to insider trading?
If you don't know what they are you don't really exist in a major IT organization.
If you don't know what they are you don't really exist in a major IT organization.
The point is AIX and DB2 are irrelevant. Anyone still using them is doing so because that's what they've used in the past, they're afraid of change, and they're willing to throw away money on a product that's barely better than the alternatives (and only in ways they'll never take advantage of). OR, they're one of the handful of organizations that actually do need big iron design, and since such organizations are so massive and disparate, the vast majority of people in the organization, even the tech guys, know nothing of their DB2/AIX/etc. installation.
Shit is so back end almost no one sees it, and those who do are afraid to change anything. And if they're forced to change something, it won't be an issue because there are plenty of viable alternatives that cost less (or nothing), are infinitely more light weight, and don't require 3 old billy goats that no one ever sees to maintain it.
Basically, WHOOSH.
Desktop support and web development aside, big companies use them for a reason. Power is still a viable architecture and AIX is a good OS. Not everyone can run their business on MySQL.
Or he works for an organization less than 30 years old.
I can't speak for DB2, but AIX is a crock of shit. The only reason anyone chose it back in the day was because Linux didn't exist.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."