IBM invents new liquid transistor technology

[Extelleron]

So because Warren buys stocks it all good? Thats what your argument is.

Raised profit is always good for investors. IBM just moved to higher margin fields with software. But its layoffs and outsourcing. IBM havent had any real growth, its simply stagnant. Corrected for inflation its actually shrinking.

No, that's not what my argument is. First of all, we're not arguing about whether or not buying IBM is a good investment. You had claimed that IBM was a "slowly dying dinosaur" and a shadow of its former self. I responded that IBM is more profitable than it has ever been and has been consistently improving for the past decade as it transitions its business towards higher margin products. You then claimed their recent success was artificial and unsustainable, suggesting IBM is simply fooling investors for a short period of time but will soon crash and burn. I brought up Buffett's investment as evidence that others who have investigated IBM much more thoroughly than you or I completely disagree with your assessment.

Revenue isn't the goal, unless you're an Amazon investor. They just continually give Bezos the benefit of the doubt that someday he'll find a way to make money. Is the fact that IBM's revenues were down about 2% in 2012 disappointing? Yes. But Intel's revenues were down, are they a slowly dying dinosaur, too?

 

[bryanl]

When was the last time anything IBM invented went into mass production?

Giant magnetoresistive heads for hard disks?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Outside of 2012 IBM has growing both the top an bottom lines at about 7% a year since 2008.

What's the inflation rate in Denmark? It's been about 2% in the US during the same time frame.

The average revenue growth rate for IBM the last 7 years is 1.5%.

 

[sxr7171]

So because Warren buys stocks it all good? Thats what your argument is.

Raised profit is always good for investors. IBM just moved to higher margin fields with software. But its layoffs and outsourcing. IBM havent had any real growth, its simply stagnant. Corrected for inflation its actually shrinking.

Corrected for inflation the entire stock market has been shrinking since 2000. As for IBM it trades at a P/E lower than the broader market. They mostly make money off of services and software. Just because what they do isn't cool and visible to us doesn't mean they don't make a lot of money from it. If anything their transition from hardware to services and software serves as an example of a business successfully changing with the times and growing profits. The fact that they still invest in hardware R&D is icing on the cake. It just takes one thing to successfully commercialize to make it all worth it.

Apple is an example of this. In the past decade they went from almost dead to the company with the highest market cap (until the recent crash) with just two things:

1. Created a music player interface using a wheel that could allow the user to quickly locate a song among tens of thousands of songs.

2. Created a touch screen interface that was good enough that the trade off between having a physical keypad/keyboard or a large screen covering the entire front of a portable communication device allowed the vast majority of the world to prefer having the larger screen.

In my book those 2 things transformed the company from nearly dead to the most valuable tech company. Everything else they did such as app store, ecosystem etc. was all predicated on #2 above.

 

[sxr7171]

No, that's not what my argument is. First of all, we're not arguing about whether or not buying IBM is a good investment. You had claimed that IBM was a "slowly dying dinosaur" and a shadow of its former self. I responded that IBM is more profitable than it has ever been and has been consistently improving for the past decade as it transitions its business towards higher margin products. You then claimed their recent success was artificial and unsustainable, suggesting IBM is simply fooling investors for a short period of time but will soon crash and burn. I brought up Buffett's investment as evidence that others who have investigated IBM much more thoroughly than you or I completely disagree with your assessment.

Revenue isn't the goal, unless you're an Amazon investor. They just continually give Bezos the benefit of the doubt that someday he'll find a way to make money. Is the fact that IBM's revenues were down about 2% in 2012 disappointing? Yes. But Intel's revenues were down, are they a slowly dying dinosaur, too?

IBM has successfully diversified but however painful it may be for a tech forum to consider it I think Intel is going down that path. The strongest thing they have going for them is their fabs and fabrication lead. Apart from some poorly coded games and visual effects its hard to find programs that are CPU bound these days. The killer app is mobile now and going forward it will be all about smart watches, smart glasses, smart clothes etc. Basically things that require computing power in small, power efficient packages. If they were to get into medium range wireless power/charging or fuel cells that would be a game changer. We are limited by batteries today. So IMHO we are mostly energy bound. I think that is the limiting factor for the kinds of things people will use technology for.

 

[Demo24]

When was the last time anything IBM invented went into mass production?

Largely irrelevant as its unlikely they will do much towards using it for many of their purposes, but more likely they will just sell/rent the patent off if its a viable solution.

 

[Idontcare]

...Apart from some poorly coded games and visual effects its hard to find programs that are CPU bound these days. The killer app is mobile now and going forward it will be all about smart watches, smart glasses, smart clothes etc...

That is an extremely narrow view of what all the semiconductor industry enables in the compute segment.

Consumer gizmos get the bulk of the mainstream publicity that we are exposed to because there is a growth story to talk to there when it comes to stocks and business valuations.

Its no mystery why Intel's stock popped as high as it did pre-2000, same as Google and Apple 10yrs later.

The equity bubbles in stocks always follow the consumer products because the consumer hold the product in their hand and think it is awesome, then they get constant hype fed into their ears and eyes about the company's stock going to the moon so they start buying stock themselves or through mutual funds, and when the growth story wears off the pump-and-dump crashes.

Largely irrelevant as its unlikely they will do much towards using it for many of their purposes, but more likely they will just sell/rent the patent off if its a viable solution.

IBM will license it for revenue, it is their business model to do so.

I think where people are coming at this though is with the question of "will it make it into Fishkill?" and the answer there is likely "no". The two R&D groups are very much seperated, like two different companies that happen to have an employer that goes by the same name. There is a little cross-talk but it is very little.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Wasn't there another material found to be better than Silicone? maybe 2011? i lost the link.. :hmm:

 

[Homeles]

Wasn't there another material found to be better than Silicone? maybe 2011? i lost the link.. :hmm:

Pretty sure there isn't anything better than silicone when it comes to breast implants.

 

[Idontcare]

Wasn't there another material found to be better than Silicone? maybe 2011? i lost the link.. :hmm:

I'd take having a personality over having silicone any day of the week.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'd take having a personality over having silicone any day of the week.

:thumbsup:

Naturally