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npalli | 2 months ago

Confluent was trading at less than 50% of its IPO price when IBM made the offer. The stock and the company has been going sideways for several years now, keeps growing revenues but loses even more as most of it is in Sales and Marketing. In which world is this seen as some sort of extraordinary company that will get sabotaged by IBM. Seems Confluent management knows the writing on the wall, IBM will clean up (fire a bunch of sales and management guys) and make this a workable business. It will seem brutal for some Confluent guys but that's because their business is broken; and only someone from outside can come in and fix it as the current senior management cannot.

IBM has been around for over a hundred years, maybe they know a thing or two about running a software business :-)

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beachy|2 months ago

I joined IBM over 40 years ago, like my pappy before me.

My main takeaway from IBM's longevity is just how astonishingly long big companys' death rattles can be, not how great IBM are at running software businesses.

dpark|2 months ago

Are they dying? IBM’s stock is up 160% over the past 5 years.

namdnay|2 months ago

I don't think they're dying at all, they're just become yet another consultancy/outsourcing shop

saberience|2 months ago

IBM is a consulting business, not a software business. Their software sucks, and every actual software engineer knows it. IBM has a business selling to big, old, backwards enterprise businesses who wouldn't know good software from literal pieces of faeces.

otterley|2 months ago

That's not entirely true. Db2, for example, is a well-respected database.

Bayko|2 months ago

To me it makes sense when it comes to the stock. It's not like someone goes to Robinhood or whatever and goes... Hey you know what's underrated? Kafka! Calls on Confluent!

VonGuard|2 months ago

Not a Hacker News take I would have expected 10 years ago. Today, though. I agree.