Comment by ethbr1
2 years ago
I'd say IBM's downfall was directly related to failing to monetize Deep Blue (and similar research) at scale.
At the time, I believe IBM was still "we'll throw people and billable hours at a problem."
They had their lunch eaten because their competitors realized they could undercut IBM on price if they changed the equation to "throw compute at a problem."
In other words, sell prebuilt products instead of lead-ins to consulting. And harness advertising to offer free products to drive scale to generate profit. (e.g. Google/search)
I don't really see how IBM would ever be able to monetize something like Deep Blue. It was a research project that was understood to not be a money-maker (outside of PR, probably), and it resulted in highly specialized hardware running highly specialized software, working for its one purpose. I agree that their business model and catering to big business first is what likely led to them scaling down today, but it's still disconnected from Deep Blue.