It all started with 196 tech companies putting their names to a petition opposing US President Donald Trump's ban on Muslims from seven countries entering the US. And not just any ol' tech companies, these were the big guns — Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.
Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft file opposition against Donald Trump's immigration ban
By February 7, that number had risen to 127, with former pragmatists, Tesla and SpaceX, joining HP, Adobe and Evernote, in deciding that enough was enough.
According to a Tesla spokesperson, the only reason Elon Musk's companies were so late in coming to the party was that Musk hoped that by being on Trump's business advisory council he could try and talk some sense into the man. Well Musk probably soon found out that there's more chance of getting SNL to stop doing Trump sketches.
Yet, one tech giant remains in Trump's corner, and it's beginning to cost them. IBM's CEO Gini Rometty is also on the council, and recently the company released this statement on the ban:
"IBM has long believed in diversity, inclusion and tolerance. As we shared with all IBMers this weekend, we have always sought to enable the balance between the responsible flow of people, ideas, commerce and information with the needs of security, everywhere in the world. As IBMers, we have learned, through era after era, that the path forward – for innovation, for prosperity, and for civil society – is the path of engagement and openness to the world. Our company will continue to work and advocate for this. "
Eh!
IBM has a sordid history of backing the wrong horse, as it were, sometimes with genocidal results. According to a report by Edwin Black in The World Post, IBM provided Nazi Germany with the computers they then used to carry out a census identifying the Jews in the country and documenting them. The rest is history's deepest wound.
IBM of course denies they ever knew anything about this, and that may well be true, but you can see the enveloping shades of grey here.
Sources in IBM have stated that now members of staff, so disillusioned with the CEO and the management's stance on Trump and his ban, have started resigning from their positions in disgust.
The question facing IBM is a very simple one: Which side of history does it want to be on after the dust settles, and trust me, the dust will settle at some point.
IBM's global footprint, means it has to tread very carefully, or it stands to lose more than just the moral high ground, but the very foundation that made it a global leader in computing and data.
Just do the math guys, it's what you'll are good at!
