Company: IBM
Date: 2012-10-30
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

IBM's current 2015 plan is "Race to the Bottom" strategy
Pros: IBM offers a very broad set of opportunities both in terms of positions and technologies. It is hard if not impossible to find the same breadth anywhere else in the industry. You get to work on a variety of technologies and you get to interact with a lot of smart people. The non-executive population is best described as smart, cooperative and helpful. While it may be a generalization, I found it to be true in all areas of the company I have worked in.
Cons: The executive team in general composed of very smart people who consistently apply their talents towards undermining their peers. Most executives have a razor sharp focus on their careers with nothing more than lip service paid to the product. Executive effectiveness is measured by ability to manage execution even when executing on the wrong objectives. "Product" is where the company suffers the most. Almost all new technologies are coming from acquisitions with existing teams focusing in incremental, non disruptive, enhancements. One exception is Watson but it s a very minor part in the overall scope of the company. There is a real leadership void at the executive level.