IBM is trapped by their very wealthy legacy customers [banks, insurance companies, governments and a few fortune 100 stores]. IBM certainly has the talent to create new products, but unless they appeal to those customers, the effort is pointless. The existing customers are so wealthy that it's not worth the effort of the IBM sales machine to target anyone else.
When IBM buys a company, it's not to get new customers. It's only to get products that their legacy customers have been buying from someone else.
To be fair, it is quite OK for them to do just that. To cater exclusively to large businesses that require multi decade support and who demand specialized features. The reason those wealthy clients are still with IBM is precisely because they can trust IBM (it’s possibly the only tech company they do trust).
IBM marketing is all smoke and mirrors to convince everyone that they’re cutting edge in areas they’re not. They don’t need to be; their important customers are fine. The customers just want to feel like they’re working with an “innovative” company, and that feeling is delivered by IBM marketing and M&A.
>The customers just want to feel like they’re working with an “innovative” company
Actually this fully explains their foray into "blockchain". It's the hottest thing to happen to banking since the web, even though it may be pointless.
As someone who's built "production" software on top of IBM's "private blockchain" tech... it isn't quite pointless, but it's not far off; though that was a few years ago at this point lol
When IBM buys a company, it's not to get new customers. It's only to get products that their legacy customers have been buying from someone else.