7 ms·

As another IBM employee, I second that. His rumor caused panic for a lot of people.

by rjruizes 12y ago

DannyBee 12y ago
His rumor is probably a multi-year plan rather than a one-time event.
- timf 12y ago
  He said "By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone"
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Ooh, missed that. Well, i'd bet he's wrong then. They'll be gone, just not by end of february.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Why are you so gleeful predicting doom for IBM?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - DannyBee 12y ago
        I'm not predicting doom, i'm predicting that given their revenue is dropping for the past 11 quarters, and they can't they will cut the number of people to match the size of the market in most places, since they don't believe they can grow those markets. They don't need 400k people if their future is providing cloud and cloud services, and not tons and tons of services contracts in every walk of life etc Given they've taken restructuring charges between 600 million and 1.5 billion the past few years (which is about 7000-20000 people a year), why do you think they are going to magically reverse course?
        jacquesm 12y ago
        IBM has re-invented itself more times than you remember. They did it when mini computers came along, when the PC hit (an own goal if there ever was one), they did it when the Internet came of age (and when everybody else was still playing catch-up or even ignoring it) and I'm pretty sure they'll be able to survive the transition to the next phase of things (the cloud or whatever is fashionable). IBM is about as stable as they come, they do IT in whatever form it comes. When it was big iron they rolled their own hardware and software to go with it, now it is Linux, so they'll do Linux (on mainframes if you want it), if that changes, they'll change again. I'd write off a lot of companies long before I'd write off IBM and while they're laying off in one set of divisions they're hiring in others. So they're not 'magically' going to reverse course, they are gradually going to change course, like they've always done (and like every other supertanker does, move too fast and you'll break things for real, this is not a start-up). Each and every one of those changes was heralded as 'the end of IBM'. They definitely messed up during the OS wars, I'll give you that but for the most part they rode the waves better than just about any other tech company that has been around this long. Rumors of IBMs imminent demise are most likely vastly exaggerated and any prediction of lay-offs should be henceforth accompanied by some evidence or I'll simply not buy them any more, especially when they entail 100K+ lots of employees. How are Sperry, Control Data, Data General, Burroughs, SGI, Cray, DEC and a whole slew of others doing these days?
        iends 12y ago
        In its pursuit of EPS, IBM has lost its rank and file within the USA. Morale is pretty low. When I left in 2014, "resource actions" were a weekly discussion topic. In Software Group. On a very profitable product. Layoffs have been happening yearly from when I was an intern in 2007 until I quit IBM about a year ago. IBM stopped publishing its US employment counts for this very reason.
        agumonkey 12y ago
        I can't agree more. IBM is so old it says something. But .. what's there for them in the future ? I don't know how much money they get from consultancy, or their mainframe/big-customers. Maybe the trends don't really matter in IBM's case. But when I see proliferation of tiny yet capable computing devices, self-driving cars, wearables etc etc I hope that IBM didn't leak all their hardware R&D talents out by aiming at services (subjective anecdatum: I wouldn't regret their software design / appserver for a second)
      - anonbanker 12y ago
        Ever read IBM & The Holocaust [1]? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
  - johnward 12y ago
    It's not the end of Feb yet so how do you know he isn't right? Also there is still a chance they plan to get rid of a large number but are avoiding the negative PR but staggering it.
    - johnward 12y ago
      I agree that it's unlikely. Even if they would want to get rid of that number of people it would take years. Plus you would think they would try to sell off a part of the business instead of laying off so many people and paying out severance.

As another IBM employee, I second that. His rumor caused panic for a lot of people.

DannyBee 12y ago

His rumor is probably a multi-year plan rather than a one-time event.

timf 12y ago
He said "By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone"
- DannyBee 12y ago
  Ooh, missed that. Well, i'd bet he's wrong then. They'll be gone, just not by end of february.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Why are you so gleeful predicting doom for IBM?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      I'm not predicting doom, i'm predicting that given their revenue is dropping for the past 11 quarters, and they can't they will cut the number of people to match the size of the market in most places, since they don't believe they can grow those markets. They don't need 400k people if their future is providing cloud and cloud services, and not tons and tons of services contracts in every walk of life etc Given they've taken restructuring charges between 600 million and 1.5 billion the past few years (which is about 7000-20000 people a year), why do you think they are going to magically reverse course?
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        IBM has re-invented itself more times than you remember. They did it when mini computers came along, when the PC hit (an own goal if there ever was one), they did it when the Internet came of age (and when everybody else was still playing catch-up or even ignoring it) and I'm pretty sure they'll be able to survive the transition to the next phase of things (the cloud or whatever is fashionable). IBM is about as stable as they come, they do IT in whatever form it comes. When it was big iron they rolled their own hardware and software to go with it, now it is Linux, so they'll do Linux (on mainframes if you want it), if that changes, they'll change again. I'd write off a lot of companies long before I'd write off IBM and while they're laying off in one set of divisions they're hiring in others. So they're not 'magically' going to reverse course, they are gradually going to change course, like they've always done (and like every other supertanker does, move too fast and you'll break things for real, this is not a start-up). Each and every one of those changes was heralded as 'the end of IBM'. They definitely messed up during the OS wars, I'll give you that but for the most part they rode the waves better than just about any other tech company that has been around this long. Rumors of IBMs imminent demise are most likely vastly exaggerated and any prediction of lay-offs should be henceforth accompanied by some evidence or I'll simply not buy them any more, especially when they entail 100K+ lots of employees. How are Sperry, Control Data, Data General, Burroughs, SGI, Cray, DEC and a whole slew of others doing these days?
        iends 12y ago
        In its pursuit of EPS, IBM has lost its rank and file within the USA. Morale is pretty low. When I left in 2014, "resource actions" were a weekly discussion topic. In Software Group. On a very profitable product. Layoffs have been happening yearly from when I was an intern in 2007 until I quit IBM about a year ago. IBM stopped publishing its US employment counts for this very reason.
        agumonkey 12y ago
        I can't agree more. IBM is so old it says something. But .. what's there for them in the future ? I don't know how much money they get from consultancy, or their mainframe/big-customers. Maybe the trends don't really matter in IBM's case. But when I see proliferation of tiny yet capable computing devices, self-driving cars, wearables etc etc I hope that IBM didn't leak all their hardware R&D talents out by aiming at services (subjective anecdatum: I wouldn't regret their software design / appserver for a second)
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      Ever read IBM & The Holocaust [1]? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
- johnward 12y ago
  It's not the end of Feb yet so how do you know he isn't right? Also there is still a chance they plan to get rid of a large number but are avoiding the negative PR but staggering it.
  - johnward 12y ago
    I agree that it's unlikely. Even if they would want to get rid of that number of people it would take years. Plus you would think they would try to sell off a part of the business instead of laying off so many people and paying out severance.