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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.

#11

Post by rdtsc »

That is a good sign. It means the ship is slowly turning around. It sucks for the employees being laid off, no doubt. However they have to do this. There is no other way. They bet big on support and services in early 2000s. So they have lots of those employees. Could they all start to learn new things adapt to the new environment, yeah, some will but not everyone will.

Heck, if they didn't lay off people, they'd still have punch-card machine cleaners and even cheese slicer designers (they used to sell those way back in the day).

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

#12

Post by amptorn »

colindean wrote: post #9
apo wrote: 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.

Seems like a stopped clock situation in his case. That prediction is from a year ago and came to relatively little; he didn't predict this at all.

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

#13

Post by tdicola »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8
JohnTHaller wrote: post #3

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.

Corporations have perfected layoffs done in such a trickle or way as to prevent triggering the WARN act and other legislation. It's sick but just a fact of life. See also how they've perfected dodging taxes in offshore shell companies (and blow off criticism with the line 'we are just following the laws as written').

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

#14

Post by mtgx »

davidw wrote: post #6

Sort of relevant. Paul Graham tweet on IBM patent trolling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/705416252563419136

IBM and Microsoft were instrumental in stopping the abolishing of business method patents - and surprise surprise, now they use them to patent troll other companies:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/20...

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

#16

Post by mikeyouse »

mwnz wrote: post #15
JohnTHaller wrote: post #3

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).

What advantage does that give the company?

Much lower salaries with no long-term liabilities?

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

#17

Post by JustSomeNobody »

adventured wrote: post #4
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

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…

The stock market doesn't reward investing in R&D because you can't benefit from it in three months.

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

#18

Post by dsmithatx »

I was at IBM from 1999 until my layoff in 2002. It was the 9th layoff for our group (Websphere). These layoffs suck and the stress nearly killed me. Back then the layoffs occurred after the dot com bubble burst. Lately I've been hearing lots of rumors from investors of wide spread belief of a tech bubble about to pop again. I'm guessing IBM is aware of this speculation and trying to be ahead of the game this go round.

They hate to see their stock price drop and I'm very glad I'm not in a situation like that anymore.

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

#19

Post by marcus_holmes »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #7
adventured wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

According to the article IBM bought Softlayer and has only just launched BlueMix.

I tried Bluemix and found it unoriginal and a cit crap. Not that the world of cloud services moves according to my preferences, but I'm not seeing it used anywhere else either.

If IBM is "prominent" in cloud services it's from acquisitions. Whereas AWS pioneered the cloud industry.

This is certainly "doing things right" in that it's providing a great exit route for startup founders in the cloud industry. I'm not sure it's "doing things right" for IBM itself.

IBM looks like it's being run by accountants. You can tell because they think they'll get the same results from someone on a H1B visa as they will from their veteran employees. Accountants can never get their heads round the fact that technical folk aren't fungible.

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

#20

Post by toomuchtodo »

ebbv wrote: post #10
toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I could've sworn they had to walk that back: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disney-technology-h1b-...
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