IBM Announces Strategic Collaboration with Arm to Shape the Future of Enterprise Computing

Collaboration aims to advance new technologies that expand infrastructure choice while preserving mission-critical environments ARMONK, N.Y., April 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today...

IBM Newsroom
This is a serious question. What does IBM, in fact, do? I'm surprised they are still around and apparently relevant. Are they more or less a services and consulting company now?

Early in my career I spent some years working at the biggest bank in Canada, they were (and still are) an enormous IBM customer. Hardware, software, consulting, and probably lots of other things I had no visibility into.

Beneath the countless layers of VMs and copious weird purpose built gear like Tandem and Base24 for the ATMs was a whole bunch of true blue z/OS powered IBM mainframes chugging through thousands and thousands of interlocking COBOL programs that do everything from moving files between partner banks all over the world, moving money between accounts, compounding interest, and extracting a metric shitton of every type of fee imaginable.

If you know z/OS there's work available until your retirement. Miserable, pointless, banal, and archaic legacy as fuck mainframe work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASE24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS

Tandem Computers - Wikipedia

I don't how exaggerated this story is, but one of my buddies did his internship at TD. One of his skip managers told him if you know COBOL there are departments that will give you a blank cheque during salary ngotiation.