IBM’s executive shakeup gets analysts’ stamp of approval

“Analysts have also chimed in with cautious optimism, including Geoff Woollacott, principal analyst and senior strategy consultant with TBR Cloud and Software. ‘The current climate is a different kind of IT landscape. The requirements and demands from enterprises are vastly different, which necessitates a different kind of leader. Arvind Krishna is, therefore, well suited to articulate and assure customers going forward,’ he told WRAL TechWire by email. Elitsa Bakalova, professional services senior analyst at TBR, added that it will bring a ‘fresh perspective.’ ‘Promoting the CEO from within is something that typically inspires employees and will prevent potential challenges related to future strategic direction of the company. The new CEO has a long history with IBM, he is a technologists and an operations expert,’ he said. Catie Merrill, research analyst at TBR, however, maintained a ‘wait-and-see’ approach. ‘IBM, with the help of Red Hat’s platform, is looking to take customers’ mission-critical back-office workloads to the cloud, in what it deems to be ‘Chapter 2 of the cloud’. This is a competency that has yet to be proven but may hold true under new leadership.'” — WRALTechWire