Is IBM on the brink of collapse?

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I heard a rumor that IBM is close to going bankrupt. Anyone else heard this or know if it's true? It's hard to imagine a world without IBM, given that they've been in existence for over a century and they were a major player in the development of mainframe computers, as well as the PC revolution.

They were on a consistent downhill trend since around 2013, but it seems they are recovering quite well going into 2016. I don't know any rumours, though.

Unless there is some huge, massive, overwhelming liability or their entire market(s) collapses, analysts seem to think the company is doing okay. Not exceedingly strong growth, but not declining. That does not include any of the disconnected spinoffs or subsidiaries that have their own financials.

I have no idea what IBM even do to make money these days. Every product they ever made was woeful.

I think that perhaps as always they sell...contracts? I know they do a fair amount of high performance research & that may be connected to lucrative government (& maybe industry) contracts. Also above a certain tier, for certain markets "mainframes" are still the best choice for large businesses.

I've heard OS/2 was pretty decent.

http://www.ibm.com/investor/services/ne ... btabs=open
You can download the annual report and other important documents for investors.

It was very hard to get running, hard to configure, and there was precious little software for it, and it needed a beefy PC. At the time Windows just had more support and was lighter-weight for the machines of the age (as was unix). By the time PCs got habitually more powerful Windows was surpassing it. There is little point in having a sound OS if people can't use it as it is hard to install, hard to get drivers for, hard to run efficiently and hard to get software for.

The old IBM Thinkpads are popular with the free software enthusiasts because they're one of the few systems that are compatible with the Libreboot BIOS which would allow one to run a computer with free, open source software from BIOS level onwards. You would also have the satisfaction of knowing that your system would be approved by the Free Software Foundation.

Here are a couple of Computer Chronicles episodes that cover Big Blue in their heyday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWRKKbkwgL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw8tvpHq5MA

In the early 2000's I had a lot of fun with a form of Linux that fit into a P2 & P3 desktop motherboard BIOS. Boot time was around 5-10 seconds from power on to usable desktop. I'd figured all of that had fallen to the wayside apart from OEM UEFI "bios browsers" and such & then you go and post about Libreboot. My 200x thinkpad is on the compatibility list. Now I really have no choice but to try it out....

oh, and thank you.