Ex-Employee Divulges Shortfalls In IBM's Cloud Business

CowboyRobot writes "IBM's cloud computing revenues are smaller and less 'cloud-intensive' than customers and Wall Street analysts might think. That's the claim of a former IBM employee who backed up more than a few of his/her critical assessments of the vendor's cloud prowess with a number of confidential internal documents shared with InformationWeek. The documents put IBM's 2012 cloud-related revenue at $2.26 billion, a figure the company has declined to disclose publicly. In 2011, IBM did issue a roadmap that set forth the goal of reaching $7 billion in annual cloud revenue by 2015, so the much lower figure raises doubts about whether the company is on track. Noteworthy is data that shows that roughly half of current IBM cloud revenues are tied to hardware, in many cases systems used to run customers' private clouds or partner clouds."

Comments

Cloud Often = Same Old Datacenter

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> roughly half of current IBM cloud revenues are tied to hardware, in many cases systems used to run customers' private clouds or partner clouds.

Does this really surprise anyone here? Isn't that the whole point behind "private cloud" to get top management derps to check the "cloud" box without actually changing how the existing datacenter and applications are run?

Re:Cloud Often = Same Old Datacenter

[Nyder]

>> roughly half of current IBM cloud revenues are tied to hardware, in many cases systems used to run customers' private clouds or partner clouds.

Does this really surprise anyone here? Isn't that the whole point behind "private cloud" to get top management derps to check the "cloud" box without actually changing how the existing datacenter and applications are run?

I miss the day when clouds were called servers...

Re:Cloud Often = Same Old Datacenter

[Zak3056]

For geeks, "the cloud" simply means remote computers. The "cloud" referencing the icon for the Internet that has been in use since the early 1970s in network diagrams.

For non-geeks, "the cloud" is a mystical source of infinite storage and infinite computing power, harnessed by the magic of the Interwebs.

You've just described the relationship between a residential electrical customer and the electrical utility (the end user doesn't see the turbines, he just knows that the magic wall outlet makes his TV work). Which, all things being equal, is a pretty good comparison, given that "the cloud" is really just a reversion to the old time sharing model of computing. We geeks supply the GeeBees and the WiFis, and the rest of the world plays Angry Birds, secure in the knowledge that they are technologically savvy because they "understand" "the cloud."

Re:Oh no!

[wjcofkc]

What planet are you from? MS wrote off $900 million in surface tablets. They didn't sell them. There are about 6 million units collecting dust in a warehouse right now.

There is no IBM

[rsilvergun]

there's a bunch of sales reps and H1-B contractors gathered round an old name nobody remembers....

if you cannot build, buy

[lophophore]

IBM bought SoftLayer, one of the larger Cloud Computing providers in the US. That will contribute to their revenue quite a bit.

The employee who disclosed confidential documents better lawyer up, IBM is known for hiring the sharpest-toothed lawyers money can buy.