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Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

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Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#4

That is awful. I wonder how much of this is cursed by the bet everything on IBM Watson strategy that I have read about. Are they laying off non-Watson staff?

It's the consequence of their bet everything on services approach while the global economy stalls out. Simultaneously they gutted the technology side of their company and vastly under-invested in R&D/innovation, instead choosing to focus on financial engineering to fake earnings per share growth.

They should have been at the forefront of cloud services, with a business as large as what AWS is. Instead, they spent their resources on buying back stock and lying to investors about the future. Their financial engineering was so good, they even snookered Warren Buffett, likely ultimately costing his shareholders billions in losses.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#7

That is awful. I wonder how much of this is cursed by the bet everything on IBM Watson strategy that I have read about. Are they laying off non-Watson staff?

It's the consequence of their bet everything on services approach while the global economy stalls out. Simultaneously they gutted the technology side of their company and vastly under-invested in R&D/innovation, instead choosing to focus on financial engineering to fake earnings per share growth. They should have been at the forefront of cloud services, with a business as large as what AWS is. Instead, they spent the…

Maybe I'm not understanding your comment, but according to Forbes[1], IBM is prominent in cloud services and exceeds AWS in revenue. It sounds as though IBM's doing things right, at least in this space. It may be that in other markets, they've fallen behind or failed to innovate, e.g. the vast mobile market.

1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2015/04/27/move-over-...

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#8

There have been a couple folks on Facebook reporting that the H1-B folks they trained are staying while they are let go (ala Disney et al).

I believe that's illegal, and doing so en masse is going to spark Congressional hearings.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#9
post #5

IBM layoff rumors have been around for awhile: http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/26/ibm-right-gadfly/ I'm not sure what to make of this one.

Cringely has always been very critical of IBM. I'm unaware of how often his predictions have been right.

Disclosure: IBMer, speaking for myself.

Re: Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S.

#10

There have been a couple folks on Facebook reporting that the H1-B folks they trained are staying while they are let go (ala Disney et al).

I believe that's illegal, and doing so en masse is going to spark Congressional hearings.

It is 100% illegal, but Disney got away with it so other big firms are following suit.
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