How IBM Survived the Mainframe Apocalypse

In the late 1980s, IBM was the most valuable company on earth — worth more than the entire computing industry combined. By 1993, it was bleeding money, facing a hostile breakup by shareholders, and written off as a dinosaur. This episode drills into the specific numbers and decisions that turned it around: Lou Gerstner's iconic 'no breakup' strategy in 1993, the $3.5 billion bet on services over hardware, and the pivot to open-source Linux in 2000 that saved the company's software business. We also look at a modern echo: how in 2025, IBM is betting on quantum computing and hybrid cloud, with revenue from cloud and cognitive software now over 50 percent of total. One concrete lesson: sometimes survival means doubling down on what everyone else tells you to kill. #IBM #LouGerstner #Mainframe #BusinessPivot #CorporateTurnaround #CloudComputing #QuantumComputing #OpenSource #Linux #BusinessStrategy #Disruption #Survival #TechHistory #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #PivotPodcast #HybridCloud #ITServices Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo