IBM is not the same company it was in the 1980’s. Lou Gerstner laid off 100,000 people in the early 1990’s. Now most of its employees are non-US based:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/technology/ibm-india.html

I think that was exactly the point :)

IBM is a perfect example. The trouble was really not trouble at all. They felt the tremor, but that's it.

IBM is a withered husk of it's former self.

Adjusting for inflation IBM is worth more now than it was in 1980 and it's been kicking off a lot of dividends. Calling it a husk is misleading. Sure it failed to keep up with the growing size of the PC market, but that's a long way from failure.

The pie has become gigantic but their share of the pie has reduced to pretty much zero% from close to 100%.

They never got close to 100% and they still make ~1/4 what google does so that's far from nothing.

I've heard on the grapevine that they've been selling off real estate and other capital to stay in the black.

I don't see how that's generating 10+ billion per year in profits. Their P/E is 12 and they are worth ~130 billion. It would be one thing if they where nominally profitable, but that's a lot of money.

If you stop R&D and coast you can have outside profits for a while until your share erodes completely.

I don't think IBM has positive ROI for their R&D costs. They are mostly just a consulting shop so cutting R&D is probably a long term net gain.