August 24, 2023
The Register discovered three internal letters from IBM announcing the cancellation of products that seem not to exist other than to display a fondness for telling “Dad jokes.”
One letter references IBM’s Guardium data security suite, and reports the withdrawal of a service named “Guardium of the Galaxy”. The memo further adds: “This is for informative purposes solely and is not an actual offering.”
Another letter announces the cancellation of a fictional software product called “SOARing right into a brick wall.” A third letter says that a mock IBM offering called “CPaking It In, IAM Done for the Day” has also been dispatched to the digital dustbin. “Packing it in” means ending the workday in the U.K. CP is like a manager for computer resources in IBM’s Z system. IAM is short for Identity and Access Management.
The Guardium joke references the Guardians of the Galaxy from Marvel. SOAR stands for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response.
IBM has since deleted the letters.
The sources for this piece include an article in TheRegister.
