IBM’s ‘Smarter Planet’ Needs a Tutor
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Samuel Palmisano sure knows how to make an exit.
In October 2011 the former IBM chairman said he would turn the reins over to Virginia Rometty. At the time, it looked like Palmisano was doing his successor a solid. (Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg Businessweek, hired Palmisano as a policy adviser last May.) IBM’s share price had been rising and would continue to rise even higher in the months following this leadership announcement. To all appearances, Palmisano had shaped IBM into a steady, profit-making machine, and Rometty just needed to keep executing his plan—shifting toward software and services while expanding the company’s presence in growing overseas markets.