I guess even if those source citations are wrong, my original still stands, IBM owned a business that was completely outside of their core business and have wasted a ton of money on things other than improving what they do best and have been doing for decades.
The list of companies that have gone down this road is long, some realize their mistakes and turn it around, others disappear, especially in the technology sector.
Remember the name Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) they were the going overtake IBM at one time, they are gone.
Remember Sun Microsystems, they don’t exist anymore.
My former company Burroughs doesn’t exist anymore along with Sperry-Univac, they merged when I worked there in the mid-80s to form Unisys, which still exists but bears no resemblance to what they once were.
Apple was nearly gone by hiring a non-IT CEO, brought back Steve Jobs and reinvented themselves and are probably the most valuable company in the world right now.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) is another company moving closer to oblivion that looks nothing like they once were. They hired the horrible Carly Fiorina, I have a friend that started at HP and immediately had a negative 80 hours of PTO, the policy was everyone had to take a mandatory 2-week furlough at the end of the year, if they didn’t have the PTO, they went negative into the next year, this policy did wonders to employee moral.
GE went on a binge and bought among others NBCU and had no business in the entertainment industry, they also started GE Capital both of which in the end cost them a ton of money, they seem to have righted the ship with some sane management.
Boeing turned the company over to bean counters and ended up with planes falling out of the sky.
All these companies have something in common, they all have been lead by people who know nothing about how the business operates, they know numbers which in the end has cost the company in some cases everything.
I used to work for EDS which was bought by HP.
EDS was a good place to work. HP, not so much. I was glad to leave.
HP was stupid with that mandatory furlough, they even required people on contracts to take it, meaning HP doesn’t get paid by the customer for the hours not worked.