New HelpSystems CEO Chris Heim didn’t waste any time making his first big move last week when the company announced the acquisition of Halcyon Software, its closest natural competitor in systems management. The acquisition and the hiring of Heim–a one-time programmer with an eye for product development–kicked off a new era for HelpSystems following the retirement of former CEO Janet Dryer, who has been with the company for 30 years.

HelpSystems looks a lot different today than when Dryer took over the top job at Help/Systems (it had a slash in its name until recently) 16 years ago. At

Big Blue did a lot of changing last year, and CEO Ginni Rometty started off this year by making some organizational and personnel changes that reflect the new shape of its company and the opportunities that it sees ahead of it in the global economy that is also undergoing wrenching change. Information technology and the economy have been changing each other for so long that it is hard to say what is cause and what is effect, but what can be said is that IBM has spent more than 10 decades adapting to such changes.

In a memo to IBM

If you know Domino, you’ve known the benefits of collaboration software long before they crowded under the umbrella of social networking. Peer inside a Domino shop and you’re likely to find an organization that understands the value of workflow and peer-to-peer teamwork. Efficiency? Yes. But for most, it is efficiency based on older collaboration technology. There are indicators that a transformation is taking shape. Keep an eye on this in 2015. And, yes, there are IBM i shops involved.

Very few Domino shops have adopted IBM‘s flagship collaboration software suite of products known as Connections. It has been less

As 2014 drew to a close, the Wall Street Journal, which undoubtedly can recognize an outfit in decline, said IBM shares would be the year’s worst performing component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM was the biggest loser of the DJIA in 2013, too. The last company to do so poorly was Bethlehem Steel in 1995 and 1996; it was kicked off the DJIA in 1997. In 2001, Bethlehem went bankrupt, and two years after that it was dismembered. If IBM doesn’t change quickly and dramatically, it is a goner.

Goodwill impairment may be the ruin of IBM.

Just as last year was ending and The Four Hundred went on hiatus for the holidays, the OpenPower Foundation that IBM established a year ago added a bunch of new members and also announced that it would be hosting its first summit for system builders, application developers, and other parties that are interested in creating wares based on the Power architecture.

While the OpenPower Consortium was created in August 2013 by IBM, Google, Nvidia, Tyan, and Mellanox Technologies, the more formal OpenPower Foundation that governs the effort to open source elements of the Power architecture to