alt Hacker NewsNot wrong but the image that people are painting in the comments is getting close to a caricature now.
The stuff IBM is doing on Quantum Computing is serious cutting-edge science and engineering for instance. The R&D they are doing on semiconductors on their 2nm and sub-2nm processes is also impressive and hardcore tech. They are doing a bunch of progress on post-quantum cryptography and homomorphic encryption. They've fallen behind now, but they were also quite strong on pre-LLM NLP for a couple of decades, it was not all fluff.
Yes they have an awful enterprise culture and they are not focused on building excellent products. But what they offer fits the needs of many organizations, and a lot of the things they are doing on R&D are no joke.
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> The R&D they are doing on semiconductors on their 2nm and sub-2nm processes is also impressive and hardcore tech.
But they don't have production. How can they develop successfully without running silicon in a fab?
Doing research? Sure... Maybe. But it doesn't mean they are going to get anywhere to mass production... What was their last huge innovation? On top of that I won't give that much credit for what they do or say they do. Remember how much they lied about many of their "innovations" like IBM Watson?
> not focused on building excellent products
> a lot of the things they are doing on R&D are no joke
Sounds a _lot_ like Microsoft too...
IBM shouldn't be thought of as a singular company. It is a conglomerate that does widely distinct things. Some enterprise boring profit squeezing, some shady scam "IBM blockchain on Z OS prevents viruses," some research/patent efforts elsewhere.
That said the GP is spot on for this sort of acquisition we know what will happen and has nothing to do with 2nm research division.