Shares are not cash, IBM has to know who to send dividends to. That does not mean you can't have middlemen just a known address or bank account + number of shares.
For "real" shares, yeah. (also, voting, and other rights at dissolution). I think it is possible to have a virtual corporation which has some kind of self-enforcing dividend also payable in bitcoins. The practical benefit of this for any company with a legal presence is minor, but allowing something to exist entirely online with no particular jurisdictional ties would be nice.
I still don't think the benefits of this make up for the costs of the blockchain for most uses.
>Shares are not cash, IBM has to know who to send dividends to.
So they can send the dividends to the addresses that own shares. In fact, that should be even cheaper than using a bank or any other middleman-requiring system. Another advantage of decentralization.
