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Shell IBM collaboration doomed to fail

Posting on Shell Blog on Feb 27th, 2010 at 10:19 am by “guest1”, a regular contributor.

What a load of nonsense in the Forbes article. Shell and IBM to team up etc. We HAD all the expertise but that was removed by the HR and FN idiots that run Shell now. What does IBM know about oil and gasfields? This surely looks like another project, doomed to fail, whereby IBM is going to suck a lot of money out of Shell. Presumably Brinded bought a lot of stock in IBM. RDS appears more and more like an overweight blob, unable to move, being sucked out by the service industry and governments and waiting to die. The sooner someone takes over RDS, splits it up and gets on with the business, the better. The fact they accept all the abuse by the Donovans and are unable and unwilling to defend themselves speaks volumes. If RDS cannot even handle two old codgers with a website, how will they handle real competition????

John and Alfred, perhaps you have to increase the pressure and speed up the demise of RDS.

Posting on Shell Blog Sat, 15:20 by “Outsider” – another valued regular contributor:

Agree completely with Guest1. IBM once bought (and subsequently sold at a huge loss) a company called Tigress, and had plans for integrated Corporate Data Bases based on POSC. Unfortunately Schlumberger and Landmark know that part of the business rather better than IBM ever will. If Shell can’t find oil with the help of Schlumberger and Landmark, what hope do they have with IBM?

Posting on Shell Blog Sat 2010/02/27 at 9:41pm by “Shellwaarbenjijnu” – a third highly valued regular contributor

Oh dear, regarding this collaboration between Shell & IBM – it does not appear to have started off very well if I read the press announcement. I refer to the following: “Shell can reduce the educated guesswork and extract natural resources with more certainty and efficiency, thereby optimizing the recovery of oil and gas”. Shell used to employ geoscience & petroleum engineering expertise. Is reserve estimation and production forecasting now in the hands of “educated guess workers”? That ought to really worry shareholders.

The fundamental lack of understanding of the business gets even better with comments on geophysics: “For example, geophysicists must examine time-lapse seismic data from subsurface rock formations; reservoir engineers receive well and laboratory data, and geophysicists receive information – sound waves – covering wide spaces between the wells”. Errr – what’s the difference between the two geophysical activities quoted? Is this some IBM person speaking who has just bought a book “E&P for beginners”, or is it the level of understanding within Shell now much of the real technical experience and expertise has been cleared out?

Posting on Shell Blog Sat 2010/02/27 at 10:32pm by “LongTermShareholder”

W.E. Pratt knew it already a hundred years ago when he said “Oil is found in the minds of men” But he was one of the founders of the Standard Oil company, whereas the people who try to make us believe that IBM can come to the rescue of Shell appear to be only good at getting rid of their most experienced minds.

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