Where is IBM?

IBM is undoubtedly the largest and the most important player in IT if you look at their revenues, products and history.

Unfortunately, this is not the case in the Gulf, I feel tat IBM is absent from our projects, we rarely get a call from an IBM account manager, GBM is not IBM it sells many other things and is not a one to one representation of IBM.

I think IBM guys need to become more action and more aggressive, instead of leaving everything to Oracle and SAP.

Does anyone else feel that Big Blue has become a sleeping giant in the Gulf? How can we give them a wake up call?

It is good for us as customers to see more competition in the market, SAP has given Oracle some hard time, IBM should do too.

IBM ia probably busy closing very large deals and don't have time for small customers. They do not have the same market presence that Microsoft and Oracle have.

It is possible that their exclusive tie up with GBM in our region is limiting their ability to do business.

But you are right, IBM is just not there most of the time, and when they send us emails they talk about things that are not part of our charter, smarter cities and things like that.

IBM is quite active in Egypt and has been for a long time, we see them quite often and they try to be competitive.

They services guys are also all over the place especially large customers.

The problem with IBM is that its products are so un integrated especially software, it is becoming like CA .. acquires so many bits and pieces and adds them to the price list.

Yes you would have though a company the size of IBM given its breadth of products will be more proactive in calling, visiting etc.. But probably they are busy with larger projects and are not so keen on smaller companies.

When we have interacted with IBM though, we found them professional and responsive.

IBM has always been and will always be a leader, you may or may not like some of the ways they user, you may or may not like GBM, but after all, IBM's products do work and work well.
The company plays no games and is very genuine about serving its customers. Can you say the same thing about Microsoft or Oracle?

IBM is too big to refer to as one company .. or to expect uniform behavior across the board from all its departments.

For instance the IBM hardware guys are very active and competitive, the services guys are expensive and selective .. the software guys are somewhat shy and don't tag along with the rest of the IBM guys so they tend to miss some opportunities.