Irving Wladawsy-Berger of IBM notes that for the 13th straight year IBM was issued more US patents than any other company. IBM has been acquiring innovative companies on a regular basis - Micromuse, Corio, Ascential, Daksh in the recent past. IBM has been more supportive of Linux and open source than any of the other large tech vendors. IBM's On-Demand marketing campaign is widely considered innovative.
But ask CIOs which adjective best describes IBM and they will likely say "broad" or "safe" - not "innovative". In a Gartner survey last year, less than 20% of respondents said they considered IBM a "business advisor". As someone recently joked - IBM stands for Incredibly Boring Model.
But it is definitely the elephant in the room. As Bill Gates recently commented - he worries more about IBM than he does Google. So does Larry Ellison. Mark Hurd. Scott McNeally. Joe Forehand.
Innovation is over-rated. Better to be feared.
