IBM: $7.5 Billion GenAI Business Drives Innovation in Mainframe, Soft., Consulting

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I share how IBM has built a $7.5
billion GenAI business in just 18 months, transforming everything
from mainframes to consulting under the bold leadership of CEO
Arvind Krishna.


Highlights


00:13 — IBM last week reported its Q2 numbers.
Very impressive. I thought one of the most interesting points was
that in just 18 months, IBM has built up a GenAI business with a
revenue run rate of $7.5 billion. And that GenAI impact is
cutting across IBM's entire, huge product portfolio, everything
from mainframes to software to consulting.


01:00 —This is a company that's 114 years young.
And if you were to stack up all the startups or companies of any
age that launched AI businesses within the last 18 months, I
wonder how many of those would now have revenue of $7.5 billion.
But IBM is right there, smack in the middle of that business.
Krishna said GenAI's sparking growth in everything — even with
mainframes.


02:16 — And on the software level, Krishna said
that this new rise of the AI products within IBM are helping to
improve products it currently has, like Apptio, Turbonomic, and
HashiCorp, adding additional value to them. Now, one area where
Krishna said there could be a little bit of cannibalization is in
the broad area of consulting.


03:29 — This is all another sign of the
remarkable job that Arvind Krishna has done in his five years now
as the CEO at IBM. It's hard to recall, as well as the company's
doing now and the innovation that's underway, what a mess it was
five years ago when Krishna took over. IBM now has a fantastic
portfolio of partnerships with many of the Cloud Wars Top 10
companies.


04:30 — So again, a big turnover here in the
products, the technologies that come to use, how it goes to
market, and the culture that it takes out to clients to let them
know: We at IBM are very happy to bring together the best of the
best companies in the world to drive new value for those clients.
So hats off to IBM. Very nice quarter.


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