--- title: "I visited IBM in San Francisco: a company that missed an entire era, is there still hope?" type: "Topics" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/topics/41066319.md" description: "Yesterday morning, I visited IBM in San Francisco. What a coincidence. On the very day of my visit, the U.S. government announced support for a batch of quantum computing companies, with a significant portion going to IBM. That day, IBM's stock rose by 12%. But after I left, what I kept thinking about wasn't that 12%. It was another question: Does a company that has missed an entire era get a second chance? IBM was the king of the previous era. It was the absolute dominant player in the mainframe era, and it also created the earliest PCs. But over the past decade or so, it has missed almost everything new..." datetime: "2026-05-23T05:09:15.000Z" locales: - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/topics/41066319.md) - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/topics/41066319.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/topics/41066319.md) author: "[MingPanda](https://longbridge.com/en/profiles/16386316.md)" --- # I visited IBM in San Francisco: a company that missed an entire era, is there still hope? Yesterday morning, I visited IBM in San Francisco. What a coincidence. On the very day of my visit, the U.S. government announced support for a batch of quantum computing companies, with a significant portion going to IBM. That same day, IBM's stock rose 12%. But after I left, what I kept thinking about wasn't that 12%. It was another question: **Does a company that missed an entire era get a second chance?**   IBM was the king of the previous era. It was the absolute dominant force in the mainframe era and even pioneered the PC. But over the past decade or so, it has missed almost everything new. It missed the cloud, where the winner is Amazon; it missed mobile; and in the current generative AI frenzy, it has no place on the main stage. The market's impression of IBM can be summed up in four words — **"a has-been with no future."** But from my observation, IBM hasn't given up. **It's doing something crucial: shifting its position.** It's no longer trying to force its way into the most crowded parts of new battlefields. It's not competing with OpenAI or Google on the path of general-purpose large language models. It's retreating to the enterprise scenario, doing the heavy lifting for big companies when they actually implement AI — data, compliance, industry know-how. And with its other hand, it's betting on something even more fundamental: quantum computing. Quantum computing requires decades of accumulation in physics, hardware, and engineering. It's not something a new company can catch up with in a year or two by raising a round of funding and hiring a bunch of people. This is precisely the kind of deep-seated, foundational advantage that an old-school company like IBM possesses. It's not betting on a fleeting trend; it's embarking on a long road that only a "has-been" like itself can afford to travel. Speaking of this, I'm reminded of another company — Nokia. Our generation witnessed Nokia's "fall from grace." It was once the king of the mobile phone world, then was toppled by Apple. In 2013, it sold its mobile phone business and almost vanished from the public eye. But Nokia didn't give up either. It did the same thing IBM is doing now: shifting its position. It didn't go back to making phones. It retreated behind the scenes and spent eight years transforming itself into an optical networking company. Then the AI era arrived — AI data centers require massive, high-speed connections between GPUs and between server racks, and that's exactly what optical networking provides. Nokia never bet on phones. It bet on this: machines will always need to be connected. And in the AI era, this has a new name — the transport capacity for computing power. The result: Nokia shifted from phones to optical networking, its stock price rose 119% year-to-date, hitting a 16-year high. IBM shifted from mainframes to quantum, and the market is just beginning to reprice it. **One has already proven the path, the other is just starting.**   Just these past couple of days, Nokia also opened an AI network innovation lab in California. And I happen to be in California. This coincidence made me ponder this matter for a long time. Old world vs. new world, the real question is never "who gets eliminated." The real question is: How fatal is it to miss an era? My current answer is — **Missing an era is not fatal.** **What's fatal is,** **after missing it,** **still wanting to return to your original position.**   Nokia didn't go back to making phones; it shifted to optical networking. IBM isn't forcing its way into large language models; it's shifting to quantum. Their logic is the same: don't linger on old battlefields, and don't go to the most crowded parts of new battlefields. Instead, find a position — one that isn't yet crowded in the new world, but where you happen to have an old, deep-seated advantage that others lack. Nokia has already proven this path works. And where IBM stands now is exactly where Nokia stood a few years ago. Of course, I must clarify where I might be wrong: Nokia's optical networking business already has solid, realized performance. But IBM's quantum computing is still far from true commercialization — quantum error correction, stability, yield rate, each is a tough nut to crack. IBM's rise this week is more about expectations and sentiment, not performance. I haven't taken a position in IBM yet; I'm still observing. If its quantum roadmap keeps slipping, I'll have to reassess this logic. But one thing I'm increasingly certain of: **The new era doesn't necessarily belong only to new companies. Sometimes, it belongs to an old company willing to shift its position.** Old companies that missed an era but are still seriously looking for a new position — besides Nokia and IBM, who else can you think of? Real-time observation, not investment advice. ### Related Stocks - [NOA3.DE](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/NOA3.DE.md) - [NOK.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/NOK.US.md) - [IBM.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/IBM.US.md) - [AMZN.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMZN.US.md) - [OpenAI.NA](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/OpenAI.NA.md) - [AMZU.US](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/AMZU.US.md)