IBM’s announcement last week that it was replacing long-tenured CEO Ginni Rometty with cloud executive Arvind Krishna signaled it was pretty serious about a significant future strategic shift for a company that has appeared listless for several years. But will it be enough to actually alter IBM's course?

The move itself will see Rometty, who has been at IBM for almost 40 years, relinquish the CEO title on April 6. Krishna, who has been at IBM for 30 years, will then officially take the helm. Those tenure notes will come into play later.

Rometty’s tenure as head of IBM has been mixed. The company has not exactly been riding the cloud wave that has washed over the IT space as its overall operations have stagnated while others have flourished. Its most recent financial result highlighted that malaise as company-wide results were down from the previous year and only kept afloat by the Red Hat operations.

And it does indeed seem odd that IBM announced the executive change a week after it released its financial results. Did they not want to cloud their mediocre results with the leadership news, which I am guessing the investor relations folks would have wanted, or was it more that they did want to link the two news items, which I am guessing the public relations folks wanted to avoid.

IBM's lackadaisical performance has also been highlighted by its stock price. While I try not to put too much stock in stocks because of the market’s overall zaniness, it's hard to ignore that IBM has not been a big mover. And IBM investors took notice of its latest move, with the company's stock witnessing its most active day over the past year following the release of the succession plan.

That view was likely buoyed by Krishna’s most recent work in overseeing IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, which was the single largest transaction in the company's 109-year history. That deal also signaled that IBM was willing to spend seemingly whatever to change its direction, or at least the perception of its direction.

Cloud and open source were a big part of both the executive moves and IBM’s Red Hat acquisition. The company has become a bit player in the burgeoning public cloud space, though it continues to latch onto any evidence that it’s a viable alternative. It’s been more aggressive in open source, but continues to be dogged by historical baggage.

One area where it still maintains an acceptable presence is in the private cloud space, and with the addition of Red Hat it’s focusing on using that as a leverage into the tweener hybrid-cloud market. This does make sense for the short-term as IBM can leverage those long-standing enterprise relationships into some sort of near-term gain. But, that market will continue to lose ground and revenues to the larger public cloud market.

Perhaps Krishna can accelerate IBM’s cloud plans. One observer likened the company’s executive shake up to what Microsoft did when long-time CEO Steve Ballmer stepped down in 2013, and was eventually replaced by current CEO Satya Nadella. Like Krishna, Nadella came to his leadership position after serving in Microsoft's then nascent cloud business. I am sure IBM boosters would take even half of what Nadella has managed to do since then, though to expect that from Krishna is probably unfair.

Maybe more troubling for IBM and the broader tech sector with Rometty’s departure is that it’s losing a female CEO. For an industry that continues to struggle with diversity, this move is a step back.

More significant for IBM is: just how much time will Krishna have to turn around the company's performance? IBM has obviously shown a strong resistance toward rapid executive changes, but this time could be different.

As part of Krishna getting the big chair, IBM also named Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst as IBM president. Whitehurst has been a big cloud and open source proponent and lacks the legacy IBM mindset that could impede the company’s ongoing transition, or at least in the mind of investors.

“While no individual is singularly responsible for the stock performance of a large organization, we nevertheless think a change can help in terms of leadership at the top,” noted BMO Capital Markets’ Keith Bachman in a research note. “In particular, we are very encouraged that Jim Whitehurst will be staying on at IBM as president, although we would have liked for Jim to get the top job.”

Others agreed, predicting that Whitehurst could have been tapped for the top role.

"Cloud is a must win to fend off activist investors and Whitehurst is well-regarded," Lisa Ellis, an analyst with MoffettNathanson, told CNN Business following IBM’s most recent earnings release and before the executive change was announced. "Given that he is now with IBM and there is a broad-based expectation that he is the heir apparent, if IBM doesn't indicate a succession plan sooner rather than later then people may agitate for one."

Krishna, Rometty, and IBM's board all said the right things in terms of the company's need to increase its focus on the cloud. And Krishna's history does indicate he has a handle on that market. But knowing and doing are two very different things when it comes to what has become an exceedingly cut-throat business. Just ask Google's Thomas Kurian.

Regardless of how this plays out, I am completely on board that Red Hat was a necessary acquisition for IBM, though I remain amazed at the lack of innovation within larger companies with seemingly endless resources that could stave off such costly investments. And I am also on board with the executive change. A fresh set of eyes will be useful, and it's not like Rometty is going away empty handed.

Both of these moves taken together show that IBM is putting resources and its reputation on the line in attempting to right its ship. Now it's just a matter of finding out who will be steering.