At least it wasn't Oracle • Hacker News Board

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#111

Post by toyg » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

mholmes680 wrote: post #95

apohn wrote: post #2

I've worked for companies that got acquired and also acquired other companies. Year 1 is usually nothing and things stay the same unless there is some serious fat that needed trimming. The interesting years are 2 and 3. That's when the parent company tries to optimize things (e.g. streamline the sales force), create synergies, etc and you start seeing the changes. Depending on where you are in the acquired company, i…

I've been part of 6 separate buy-out/merger/acquisitions (from both angles). In year 3 of current one. The event, whether you are acquired or acquiree, presents significant and unique opportunities to move vertically and/or horizontally to improve your situation. If you're sitting there wondering about job security then you (a) didn't have job security in the first place; (b) are wasting everyone's time, including yo…

I went through an acquisition myself and was told the same. In reality, nobody in our team ever got any opportunity that they wouldn’t otherwise have had. The main chances came from people resigning and leaving holes that someone else had to fill by working twice the load.

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#112

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

filereaper wrote: post #110

maxxxxx wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What will be different will be access to a company that has been running for over 100 years and evolved over that time, at all levels. Facilities all around the world. Access to some of the scientists that you may have only read their papers but now can chat with via slack." I have never seen this materialize in any big company. Different departments may as well be different companies. They never talk to each other.

Maybe not departments, but this statement is true: "Access to some of the scientists that you may have only read their papers but now can chat with via slack." I've pinged many folks over Sametime (predecessor to Slack) just by having their name, you could then lookup their Sametime Id. Most of the time it was over simple details, i.e "Hey, I see you're the author of this RedBook. In Chapter Foo Paragraph Bar, did yo…

Yes, this was what I meant. I'm not sure what two departments talking would look like, but I do know what people hanging around after a tech talk discussing the subject at hand and brainstorming interesting collaboration ideas looks like.

I'll grant you that the technology Blekko brought to IBM (the crawler) was something that a lot of people who were inside the company were interested in, so there were inbound contacts as well when someone said, "Hey we're doing X and wondering if you can do Y?" And that often lead to a discussion about what crawlers could and couldn't do legally :-) But it also lead to lots of great collaborations on various data sets and projects.

"Companies" are filled with people who talk. The only place I've heard where this is a huge issue (from former and current employees) is Apple where secrecy is pretty rampant. And while every company seems to have some "special" projects that aren't discussed, general conversations seem to be fine.

At IBM there are a lot of really really smart people who have done really cutting edge research which for me, was kind of like being a kid in a candy store :-).

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#113

Post by eiaoa » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 8:52 PM UTC

programminglisp wrote: post #36

IBM aquisition is not bad in my point of view, it is big corporation which guarantees stability to the employees.

From what I've read, IBM doesn't sound like a very stable place to work anymore. Lots of layoffs.

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#114

Post by awad » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

kpil wrote: post #58

hectormalot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eg look at the acquisition of Anheuser Busch by InBev. AB was a profitable company, but InBev is just very good at efficiency in brewing. IIRC they paid handsomely above market price at the time and were able to translate their efficiency to AB in such a way that the combined reduction in cost and uptake in revenue creates value net/net for InBev (and therefore AB)

But what is IBM truly good at that can be applied at Redhat? A lethal legal department? Super efficient HR processes? Office supplies management? I doubt something in engineering and sales? Or perhaps sales is the closest answer.

Procuring large contracts from enterprise and government. It's pretty handy in business.

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#115

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

apohn wrote: post #2

I've worked for companies that got acquired and also acquired other companies. Year 1 is usually nothing and things stay the same unless there is some serious fat that needed trimming. The interesting years are 2 and 3. That's when the parent company tries to optimize things (e.g. streamline the sales force), create synergies, etc and you start seeing the changes. Depending on where you are in the acquired company, i…

My big takeaway from the "merger" (read: takeover) of 2 Fortune 250's is: watch the management just under the C-levels. Their moves tell you everything you need to know about how it's REALLY going to shake out. If you see only one side of the house pulling the ripcords on their parachutes, well, you can't say you didn't see it coming.

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#116

Post by Nrsolis » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 9:15 PM UTC

The one thing I can't understand is why people aren't more excited about the possibility for IBM to completely transform into an open-source-forward organization.

IBM does work for EVERY Fortune 100 company. I can't comment on the working conditions but as a person who regularly works with IBM I can tell you that they aren't much worse than any other 400K employee sized company. There are a lot of folks there that love process and a bunch that are IBM lifers.

Still, the potential to push open-source further into enterprise in a HUGE way, particularly in private cloud, and give a company that might not stomach a strategic relationship with a smaller organization like RedHat.

Please also don't forget that IBM is contributing to open source projects (Istio comes to mind) that align with their strategic direction.

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#117

Post by pinewurst » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 9:16 PM UTC

devstevedev wrote: post #108

This article is really strange. the OP has only been at Red Hat for 4 months [1], and yet he speaks as though he's a Red Hat veteran. [1] https://chrisshort.net/resume-cv/

My model of the OP (or writer of the piece rather) is that he felt he'd reached safe harbor at Red Hat, especially under his personally difficult circumstances.

Imagine feeling that, then hearing your employer was being acquired by pretty much the antithesis of that culture, on a decline and happy to destroy anyone for a perceived bump in their falling stock price.

It may be different if your perspective is that of a principal from some failed startup IBM bought. They were nice enough as long as the handcuffs lasted, you didn't care about the bogus 401k match, and your large-ish check cleared.

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#118

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#119

Post by pinewurst » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

Nrsolis wrote: post #116

The one thing I can't understand is why people aren't more excited about the possibility for IBM to completely transform into an open-source-forward organization. IBM does work for EVERY Fortune 100 company. I can't comment on the working conditions but as a person who regularly works with IBM I can tell you that they aren't much worse than any other 400K employee sized company. There are a lot of folks there that lo…

https://features.propublica.org/ibm/ibm-age-discrimination-a...

Maybe their awful corporate conduct outweighs open source handwaving?

Re: At least it wasn't Oracle

#120

Post by 1290cc » Tue, Nov 06, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

new12345 wrote: post #76

dkarl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting years are 2 and 3. That's when the parent company tries to optimize things (e.g. streamline the sales force), create synergies, etc and you start seeing the changes. In my one experience with acquisition, that's when upper management's bonuses got tied to "synergy" metrics and suddenly everybody had to learn a new relationship to reality. Almost everything we did for a whole year was dedicated to gami…

It seems like the moment big corps acquire a well performing product, product starts to loose its value, like trying to move a viscous liquid between containers using a sieve. Eventually, acquired product quality get completely destroyed and it end up creating gap in market that product was serving. I think its good for new product startup as it creates opportunities for them. Its like nonterminating cycle of creatio…

And this is how its always been. Its similar to some kind of natural life cycle. All those founders out there seeking problems to solve? They just need to look at what big tech is acquiring and begin building a competing product. Often times the clients of the acquired company aren't pleased about having to a new relationship with Big Tech Co either.