You should never name a tech product Bob in the UK, because the moment it isn't perfect, it'll just get called "Bobbins" [0], especially where I'm from.
I wish IBM got better at product again, and took themselves off the services and consulting morphine they've been on for ~35 years now since OS/2 Warp flopped. Their 1980s/1990s hardware was great. Their software actually was great until Win95 took their lunch money. They've just slunk off into a corner hugging their old architectures they have a moat around, and thrown out some audacious nonsense like Watson now and again, but nothing has stuck. When is somebody in that organisation going to try and innovate properly again?
I'm not sure this is the answer I'd be rooting for.
As with most things on the UK, probably. I definitely used Bobbins.
I used to think everyone called (cobs|bread cakes|rolls|barns) muffins, and it turns out it was just my small town that did it. As in, just my small town, not region, county, etc.
PaulRobinson 57 minutes ago [-]
If you call it a teacake, and I say no those have raisins in, and you protest that's a fruit teacake, I know you're probably from Burnley: https://www.ourdialects.uk/maps/bread/
serf 52 minutes ago [-]
does that area have a textile manufacturing history?
I ask because i'm only familiar with a thread/yarn bobbin, I wonder if it derived from that.
podgietaru 36 minutes ago [-]
It does indeed, probably the heart of it.
basisword 46 minutes ago [-]
>> I used to think everyone called (cobs|bread cakes|rolls|barns) muffins
UK regional dialects are summed up really well here because despite listing five different names for a specific thing you still neglected the word I use (baps).
butterisgood 60 minutes ago [-]
The last product I know of named Bob didn’t fare so well.
jmward01 51 minutes ago [-]
Clippy came out of that....
Throudin 42 minutes ago [-]
And Rover!
Ciantic 2 hours ago [-]
This sounds a lot like Spotify's XIRP. They managed to vibe something useful for their own engineers, were super hyped, and decided to release it in public. However what are the odds this harness will stand the test of time against actual harness makers like OpenAI or Anthropic? Neither Spotify or IBM are focused on making models or harnesses, these are just side-products.
xemdetia 14 minutes ago [-]
IBM is training their own models (for instance IBM granite) as well as watsonx as a platform. They are trying to build a products for enterprise as well as their specific AI modernization models.
qsort 2 hours ago [-]
To be fair Codex and Claude Code don't have a lot of secret sauce either. This is not to say that the harness doesn't matter at all or that you can't do any better, but whenever they benchmark it always turns out that you don't lose that much with even a very minimal agent. If a different harness makes better sense for your workflow I don't see why you wouldn't switch (or make your own if you have the resources to do so).
I'm also sticking to first-party agents, but that's more because I feel no compelling reason to switch and CLI agents fit well with my spartan technology choices. YMMV.
abtinf 1 hours ago [-]
> actual harness makers
I agree IBM Bob is not the revolution, but…
We are still in the punch card era of LLMs. Maybe even the Altair era.
None of this stuff has really been figured out yet.
natsucks 1 hours ago [-]
Yes my first instinct is to roll my eyes at these efforts but we'll probably all get something better in the end from all the competition.
Stevvo 2 hours ago [-]
Interesting they are renting out agent skills. You can pick up "Java Modernization" at $20 a month for "Specialist workflows to help with modernizing Java applications", or "IBM i" for "Specialist modes, workflows, and skills to work with IBM i applications".
qsort 2 hours ago [-]
markdown as a service is crazy
closetheloopdev 2 hours ago [-]
I lol'd so hard at this comment that it hurt.
getatme32 2 hours ago [-]
IBM hasn't made a product that works since Db2 so I am fairly confident this is a flaming pile of garbage.
pytlicek 51 minutes ago [-]
No, you are wrong. IBMer here. I was at first agains it, my background is for 2 decades startup(s) before I joined IBM, and I started slowly using IBM Bob and I must say it is really good and helping. With many integrations that works :)
legitster 10 minutes ago [-]
This is especially funny when you realize how much money IBM dumped into Watson over all these years.
absoluteunit1 1 hours ago [-]
The landing/marketing page for this looks like something someone promoted/vibe coded including the Bob mascot.
Looks awful from a design perspective. Had to double check that this was the actual IBM domain
nadnad 17 minutes ago [-]
It's puzzling, considering they made some strides towards improving their design language and systems in past years, which produced IBM Plex etc. under Mike Abbink.
They have a decent component system with Carbon[0] and a whole design principles website[1] which they could have easily pointed their LLM of choice to.
Even the ibm.com landing page isn't close to the design system spec, rounded corners and whatnot...
The "What developers say" carousel has a single Java dev and dev advocate. They got lots of quotes from managers, directors, CEOs, and an "AI strategist".
PaulRobinson 1 hours ago [-]
It's IBM. They leveraged synergies with the thought leaders they could reach out and touch base with.
Skwid 28 minutes ago [-]
If you search those names you'll find most have a LinkedIn page proudly displaying their many "IBM Influencer" achievements and qualifications.
I realise LinkedIn is a surrealist caricature of corporate reality, but just imagine proudly displaying your #1 shill award for all to see
a012 2 hours ago [-]
Nobody got fired for using IBM Bob
someguyiguess 2 hours ago [-]
Pretty sure a lot of people got fired over Microsoft Bob though
hn_throw2025 2 hours ago [-]
Well, you could say Melinda got a big promotion for a while.
glitchc 1 hours ago [-]
Can we say it's Bob's fault, though? Bob did it, not me.
a012 1 hours ago [-]
You can
pestatije 2 hours ago [-]
Nobody who got fired uses IBM Bob
brk 2 hours ago [-]
This can only mean that IBM Clippy is next.
throwfaraway135 1 hours ago [-]
Working with any AI tool means you trust the vendor, sometimes you don't have a choice because the best models/tools are from specific providers. IBM isn't a company I would ever trust.
Is this just a harness or using a proprietary model in the background? Anthropic and OpenAI are already very well trained in IBM system i and z knowledge. Unless Bob is somehow improving the integration to these midrange and mainframe systems I literally dont see any benefit to using Bob. IBM will just kill this proprietary tech in 5 years as they are currently doing with RDi or forget about updating it like SEU.
meerita 1 hours ago [-]
Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Meta, all the giants are always coming late to the party.
mbreese 59 minutes ago [-]
That’s partly why they are giants. Let the startups take the arrows necessary to figure out or create the market. Then they can buy or build the gen 2 system that meets the needs of the market.
PaulRobinson 59 minutes ago [-]
Microsoft got this right once, and it cost them big to turn up late - that was the Internet and Windows 95 and the massive u-turn. Otherwise, they've been defining stuff early a lot I think. It's hard to explain how big a turnaround they had to do back then, but then it says a lot that until they made that u-turn the leadership was so confident in their own hubris they thought they could take on the entire internet with their own crap version of AOL.
IBM invented the PC and then lost control of that identity. Figuring out how that happened is something they are going to have a meeting about, but they're still working through the meetings to plan that meeting, and the Gantt chart for those meetings takes meetings to adjust, and everybody is in meetings so doesn't have time for those meetings. They'll get to them though.
Apple consistently turn up late, but redefine and improve the status quo. They sometimes prototype early in public (for example, the Newton), but normally they show up with the version 3 that everyone else wished they'd thought of that then goes on to define a sector quite cleanly (Mac, iMac, Mac OS System X, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac Mini). They Newton'ed Siri, but I'm pretty sure they're going to come back strong in the next 18 months, unless the enshitification we've all witnessed over the last few years really has taken hold and Siri is just going to automate that at scale. Maybe we will all be killed by AI, but not through malevolent evil, but widely distributed incompetence.
Meta are constantly taking swings at the latest thing the founder is excited by - the Metaverse (now with legs!), pervert glasses, and so on - but they mostly prop up a bunch of expensive failures on the back of a hugely successful advertising business. I don't think they come late to the party per se, they're just not very good at anything that isn't killing & harming children, or undermining democracy. They should stay in their lane and keep doing that, I guess.
sajithdilshan 2 hours ago [-]
I'm really confused what this is, is it a harness or a new model by IBM? Some reviews on that page suggests that it's a new model
NikolaNovak 1 hours ago [-]
I believe it sends to various models in the background, So largely a harness / framework. Ibm does have its own model which is one of the options for Bob to use.
(Note, I'm an IBMer but nowhere near this so my comment is strictly from my public knowledge/awareness:).
getatme32 44 minutes ago [-]
so it routes to actual AI companies and IBM adds additional cost on top. what a business model.
garciasn 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
amelius 1 hours ago [-]
Companies trying to make AI less of a commodity that you can just swap out for another ...
No thanks, that's what I like about AI so I'll just stay with the raw tokens.
bob1029 2 hours ago [-]
I like how the solitary review is word salad.
DeathArrow 2 hours ago [-]
31 years after Microsoft Bob, IBM releases it's own IBM Bob. :)
Nelson69 1 hours ago [-]
I thought MS killed that name forever.
someguyiguess 2 hours ago [-]
It's like they're begging for failure
ginko 2 hours ago [-]
Call it PC Bob
mvk666 1 hours ago [-]
I was at an IBM Bob party, behind the scenes it's basically other frontier models with an IBM-specific context.
unleashhale 1 hours ago [-]
This somehow has less personality than plain enterprise software. How IBM.
nielsbot 38 minutes ago [-]
Should have called it Bob The Builder
amelius 1 hours ago [-]
Looks like LEGO's lawyers will be knocking on their door soon.
pram 1 hours ago [-]
I thought the image was a joke, but you really pay with Bobcoins.. lmao
“Bobcoins are the consumption-based billing metric used for Bob subscriptions. They provide a transparent, predictable way to measure and bill for your Bob usage.”
I’m getting sick of these mobile game currency style credits/coins that obfuscate costs or usage. It’s honestly pretty gross.
Just telling us exactly what we get for our money.
selfawareMammal 2 hours ago [-]
The logo, the name... Horrible marketing/branding.
basisword 1 hours ago [-]
Thought this was going to be about Microsoft Bob.[0]
I bet this will be as successful as Microsoft Bob.
dmd 2 hours ago [-]
My guess is absolutely nobody on the team that made this is even old enough to remember Microsoft Bob.
2 hours ago [-]
self_awareness 2 hours ago [-]
Oh, so we are yet again in the 'Bob' phase?
Maybe this time it'll work.
varispeed 2 hours ago [-]
The companies who are hoarding RAM to produce pointless products should be called out. Deprive working class from computing resources to sell some corporate crap. Get fucked.
2 hours ago [-]
yapyap 1 hours ago [-]
ibm bob, will help you make slop
rdtsc 46 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
1 hours ago [-]
jrflo 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
gilliethefoil 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
colesantiago 2 hours ago [-]
I never thought the day that IBM would make complete slop.
But it is IBM after all.
lirolero 2 hours ago [-]
> But it is IBM after all.
Then how did you not see that coming?
zenethian 2 hours ago [-]
“I would expect something like this from IBM, but I never expected it from IBM!”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9ntPxdWAWq8
I wish IBM got better at product again, and took themselves off the services and consulting morphine they've been on for ~35 years now since OS/2 Warp flopped. Their 1980s/1990s hardware was great. Their software actually was great until Win95 took their lunch money. They've just slunk off into a corner hugging their old architectures they have a moat around, and thrown out some audacious nonsense like Watson now and again, but nothing has stuck. When is somebody in that organisation going to try and innovate properly again?
I'm not sure this is the answer I'd be rooting for.
[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bobbins
[Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_the_Builder_(character) ]
I used to think everyone called (cobs|bread cakes|rolls|barns) muffins, and it turns out it was just my small town that did it. As in, just my small town, not region, county, etc.
I ask because i'm only familiar with a thread/yarn bobbin, I wonder if it derived from that.
UK regional dialects are summed up really well here because despite listing five different names for a specific thing you still neglected the word I use (baps).
I'm also sticking to first-party agents, but that's more because I feel no compelling reason to switch and CLI agents fit well with my spartan technology choices. YMMV.
I agree IBM Bob is not the revolution, but…
We are still in the punch card era of LLMs. Maybe even the Altair era.
None of this stuff has really been figured out yet.
Looks awful from a design perspective. Had to double check that this was the actual IBM domain
They have a decent component system with Carbon[0] and a whole design principles website[1] which they could have easily pointed their LLM of choice to.
Even the ibm.com landing page isn't close to the design system spec, rounded corners and whatnot...
[0] https://preview.carbondesignsystem.com/ [1] https://www.ibm.com/design/language/
I realise LinkedIn is a surrealist caricature of corporate reality, but just imagine proudly displaying your #1 shill award for all to see
https://imgur.com/a/3PQXIsQ
IBM invented the PC and then lost control of that identity. Figuring out how that happened is something they are going to have a meeting about, but they're still working through the meetings to plan that meeting, and the Gantt chart for those meetings takes meetings to adjust, and everybody is in meetings so doesn't have time for those meetings. They'll get to them though.
Apple consistently turn up late, but redefine and improve the status quo. They sometimes prototype early in public (for example, the Newton), but normally they show up with the version 3 that everyone else wished they'd thought of that then goes on to define a sector quite cleanly (Mac, iMac, Mac OS System X, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac Mini). They Newton'ed Siri, but I'm pretty sure they're going to come back strong in the next 18 months, unless the enshitification we've all witnessed over the last few years really has taken hold and Siri is just going to automate that at scale. Maybe we will all be killed by AI, but not through malevolent evil, but widely distributed incompetence.
Meta are constantly taking swings at the latest thing the founder is excited by - the Metaverse (now with legs!), pervert glasses, and so on - but they mostly prop up a bunch of expensive failures on the back of a hugely successful advertising business. I don't think they come late to the party per se, they're just not very good at anything that isn't killing & harming children, or undermining democracy. They should stay in their lane and keep doing that, I guess.
(Note, I'm an IBMer but nowhere near this so my comment is strictly from my public knowledge/awareness:).
No thanks, that's what I like about AI so I'll just stay with the raw tokens.
https://bob.ibm.com/pricing
I’m getting sick of these mobile game currency style credits/coins that obfuscate costs or usage. It’s honestly pretty gross.
Just telling us exactly what we get for our money.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob
Maybe this time it'll work.
But it is IBM after all.
Then how did you not see that coming?