Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 107 posts

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#11

Post by krschultz »

lmg643 wrote: post #7
pesenti wrote: post #2

So does that mean we can finally stop listening to Cringely altogether? I am an IBM employee and I can tell you a lot of my fellow IBMers had a really bad week-end because of his ridiculous claims. For context see previous discussion on the 110000 employee layoff that won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8944637

I wonder if IBM would change their plan based on this leaking. If he really had this totally and completely wrong, then of course that is very irresponsible of him to say. I don't see how you can stop listening to Cringely altogether though. They did abandon their $20/share EPS plan, which was a pretty epic change. The claims about global services having I would like to see IBM do well, it makes me angry to see big c…

Something like laying off 25% of the company is as drastic a measure as you can ever take other than closing up shop. If they were thinking about it, they were not thinking about it lightly. They certainly wouldn't change their mind just because the news leaked.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#12

Post by DannyBee »

pesenti wrote: post #2

So does that mean we can finally stop listening to Cringely altogether? I am an IBM employee and I can tell you a lot of my fellow IBMers had a really bad week-end because of his ridiculous claims. For context see previous discussion on the 110000 employee layoff that won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8944637

I don't think today's IBM ever planned to layoff 110k at once.

Lay off 10k here, 10k there, call one a workforce restructuring, another "an innovation related rebalancing plan", blah blah blah.

It seems highly unlikely to me that IBM would just up and lay off 110k workers. Ignoring any other issues, the political blowback and PR blowback they'd get from politicians would be huge right now. IBM doesn't want to get in the middle of the current job-related wranglings.

When they laid off 60k in 1993, you can see it didn't really happen all at once then either.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/16/business/first-layoffs-see...

(February)

and then http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CEEDF163EF...

(July)

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#13

Post by DannyBee »

rjruizes wrote: post #4
pesenti wrote: post #2

So does that mean we can finally stop listening to Cringely altogether? I am an IBM employee and I can tell you a lot of my fellow IBMers had a really bad week-end because of his ridiculous claims. For context see previous discussion on the 110000 employee layoff that won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8944637

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

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

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#14

Post by timf »

DannyBee wrote: post #13
rjruizes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

He said "By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone"

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#15

Post by timf »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
pesenti wrote: post #2

So does that mean we can finally stop listening to Cringely altogether? I am an IBM employee and I can tell you a lot of my fellow IBMers had a really bad week-end because of his ridiculous claims. For context see previous discussion on the 110000 employee layoff that won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8944637

I think for an error of this magnitude some kind of apology would be in order. If he can't manage that he's lost a lot of credibility.

I don't think he apologized the last two times he incorrectly made massive IBM layoff predictions:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070504_0020...

http://www.cringely.com/2012/04/18/not-your-fathers-ibm/

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#16

Post by DannyBee »

timf wrote: post #14
DannyBee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He said "By the end of February all 26 percent will be gone"

Ooh, missed that. Well, i'd bet he's wrong then. They'll be gone, just not by end of february.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#17

Post by hristov »

jacquesm wrote: post #10
pesenti wrote: post #2

So does that mean we can finally stop listening to Cringely altogether? I am an IBM employee and I can tell you a lot of my fellow IBMers had a really bad week-end because of his ridiculous claims. For context see previous discussion on the 110000 employee layoff that won't happen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8944637

I think for an error of this magnitude some kind of apology would be in order. If he can't manage that he's lost a lot of credibility.

An error of what magnitude? IBM has not said exactly how many people will be laid off so we do not know what the magnitude of the error will be. Furthermore, they can certainly perform a 110K layoff by splitting it into multiple layoffs of thousands.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#18

Post by x0rg »

I think IBM should stop selling the ultra crap software that is selling right now like Websphere commerce and all the crappy enterprisey stuff. They really need something good to change and if layoffs are for the better, it's probably worth trying. If the plan is to keep this stuff going, it's gonna be bad.

Re: IBM says 'several thousand' layoffs on the way

#19

Post by DannyBee »

krschultz wrote: post #11
lmg643 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if IBM would change their plan based on this leaking. If he really had this totally and completely wrong, then of course that is very irresponsible of him to say. I don't see how you can stop listening to Cringely altogether though. They did abandon their $20/share EPS plan, which was a pretty epic change. The claims about global services having I would like to see IBM do well, it makes me angry to see big c…

Something like laying off 25% of the company is as drastic a measure as you can ever take other than closing up shop. If they were thinking about it, they were not thinking about it lightly. They certainly wouldn't change their mind just because the news leaked.

???? IBM is highly likely to have to lay off that many given the dryup of various markets.

When HP splits, it's likely they'll do the same.

This is just the way the services market is going.

As for whether they'd change, uh, people like their current CEO definitely change their mind based on the way the wind is blowing, and how much crap will hit the fan.

Post reply on HN