Sounds like another chapter from The Innovator's Dilemma. IBM catching a tech wave after missing several in a row is quite unlikely.<p>With forward-looking engineering-centric management, they may have created/bought a startup to pioneer the cloud and been successful. As they did for the PC in '81. But the bean-counters that have been in charge for decades wouldn't allow it to happen.
I tested many messages in the business development for a solution that targeted a few industries, but particularly the financial industry.<p>I found "hybrid cloud" tested worse than (almost) any other buzzword. We were hoping it would communicate the idea that we wouldn't get you stuck on this or another platform. The reaction wasn't quite as bad what we got from "mark to market" (which makes finance people have autonomic disorders such as turning red or turning pale) but it was pretty bad.