IBM really does capitalize on the adage of nobody being fired for buying IBM. Their biggest strength has been in their marketing rather than actual technology.
Note that, being a large org, they do have teams doing excellent work too. IBM research, some of the cloud, design etc. teams seem to be doing good stuff. But most of it is still overpromising and underdelivering while charging clients a lot of cash.
Likewise, IBM has become known as a vaporware vendor. They combine the worst parts of management consulting with an offshore / outsourced development process, so I guess it’s not a surprise they ended up like all the other companies that sell business tech solutions (Infosys, Wipro, etc). They’re often mentioned in the same breath these days.
- IBM's hardware support is excellent to the point of being obsessive
- IBM's support for anything that is not a hardware problem would be better-implemented by a 5 year old eating paste