Reports Coming in of Big IBM Layoffs Underway in the U.S. • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by rdtsc » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:51 AM UTC

mattzito wrote: post #22

rdtsc wrote: post #11

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 stil…

See, these types of comments are (again) why people have negative opinions towards silicon valley types. You may be right, but a good sign for whom, exactly? For the people who lost their jobs? For shareholders? For fans of IBM the company? Sure, yes, I agree that IBM probably has to shed people in order to stay competitive. However, it's not the fault of the people who are being affected by this, as by and large the…

> You may be right, but a good sign for whom, exactly? For the people who lost their jobs? For shareholders? For fans of IBM the company?

For IBM. For shareholders. For people who are not laid off and still work there.

> it's not the fault of the people who are being affected by this, as by and large they were not responsible for IBM's decision to get more and more into support and services.

Is it surprising that IBM is not a flat organization / meritocracy where regular employees get to vote on corporate strategy. Yes it is not their fault. So what should IBM do? They can provide severance packages, extra benefits maybe. Try to re-train some people perhaps. But can't keep everyone till retirement just to provide jobs (That is what Uncle Sam does).

> Why is it that when IBM made a bet that did not play out, that they have cut people's severance benefits signifcantly?

But it did play out. Services was bringing a huge amount of money during late 90s early to mid 2000s. It just doesn't anymore

> Why are we not holding IBM up to be responsible for the well-being of their workers?

We are posting on HN right. This startup land. Every 9 out of 10 startups will die. Are you holding them just as responsible? Or is there some implicit assumption that if you work for IBM then you'll be good till retirement.

> I am arguing that we shouldn't talk about layoffs as a "good sign",

I still argue it is a good sign. It is good for some parties (I enumerated a few above) and it really sucks for those getting laid off. No denying that. Hopefully they could have extra time, severance packages and so on to help.

How about this, what would you do if you ran IBM and you ended up with 50000 employees trained to do something that just doesn't bring profit anymore?

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

#32

Post by pfarnsworth » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

It seems untrue if an IBM spokesperson denied it. It would look really bad if their official spokesperson denied it and then the next day had to say the opposite.

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

#33

Post by edwinnathaniel » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

dsmithatx wrote: post #18

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…

I can't believe they did this kind of thing in 1999 - 2002 for WebSphere. That is the era where Enterprise Java, XML, and SOAP took off and App Server was selling pretty hot.

Having said that, the 1999/2000 dotcom bust is different than if it was to happen today. In 1999/2000, open source wasn't as mature/diverse/strong as today so companies will buy commercial technology provided by SUN, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle.

These days, majority of the VC backed companies are using FOSS software with minimum Oracle/Microsoft software (probably the ERP/Finance/HR modules).

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

#34

Post by makecheck » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

mattzito wrote: post #22

rdtsc wrote: post #11

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 stil…

See, these types of comments are (again) why people have negative opinions towards silicon valley types. You may be right, but a good sign for whom, exactly? For the people who lost their jobs? For shareholders? For fans of IBM the company? Sure, yes, I agree that IBM probably has to shed people in order to stay competitive. However, it's not the fault of the people who are being affected by this, as by and large the…

Executive pay doesn’t seem to follow the high-risk-high-reward scenario; they keep the “high reward” but see apparently none of the “high risk”.

A much more balanced system would be something like, for each executive:

- Your base pay is $51 million.

- If you FAIL at your task, YOU OWE THE COMPANY $50 million.

- If you succeed, you receive an extra $20 million. If you choose to split $15 million of this reward with employees in terms of stock however, your portion of the stock will be doubled.

That would put some skin in the game. And if a failing executive is forking over most of his millions back to the company, they could probably avoid quite a few layoffs. And if the executive doesn’t fail and has a direct incentive to share success with employees, the workers would be even more loyal to the cause.

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

#35

Post by JohnTHaller » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:53 AM UTC

product50 wrote: post #30

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).

This is probably heresy. No one talks about the H-1B worker who got laid off - it is only about the ones who stay. Not sure if everyone in this thread is aware but if an H-1B worker is laid off, he/she gets only 30 days to find a new job. If he is not able to land a new gig within 30 days, they have to leave US for good. So I will not judge here based on a couple of FB comments.

It's pretty common for anyone that's worked in tech for Fortune 500s before: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/lawsuit-claims-disney-c...

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

#36

Post by gedy » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:55 AM UTC

edwinnathaniel wrote: post #33

dsmithatx wrote: post #18

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…

I can't believe they did this kind of thing in 1999 - 2002 for WebSphere. That is the era where Enterprise Java, XML, and SOAP took off and App Server was selling pretty hot. Having said that, the 1999/2000 dotcom bust is different than if it was to happen today. In 1999/2000, open source wasn't as mature/diverse/strong as today so companies will buy commercial technology provided by SUN, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle. Thes…

2002 was really bad for any tech spending..

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

#37

Post by JamesSwift » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:56 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #23

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…

> It's the consequence of their bet everything on services approach while the global economy stalls out. Yeah that was their strategy the last 10 maybe 15 years. That doesn't work anymore. They have to change. It certainly sucks for folks who work in services, but I can't see IBM doing well keeping tens of thousands of people trained in that until retirement just to provide jobs or to be "nice". I understand it has b…

I think that's what he is implying here. They were so effective at this, that _even_ a savvy Warren Buffet fell for it.

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

#38

Post by increment_i » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #19

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

I had a similar experience with Bluemix. One of the biggest turn offs though was the ridiculously convoluted website for IBM's cloud services. Some serious streamlining is in order there. I had no idea where to go or what to do to get the information I needed for simple things like straightforward API pricing, etc.

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

#39

Post by rdtsc » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

JamesSwift wrote: post #37

rdtsc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the consequence of their bet everything on services approach while the global economy stalls out. Yeah that was their strategy the last 10 maybe 15 years. That doesn't work anymore. They have to change. It certainly sucks for folks who work in services, but I can't see IBM doing well keeping tens of thousands of people trained in that until retirement just to provide jobs or to be "nice". I understand it has b…

I think that's what he is implying here. They were so effective at this, that _even_ a savvy Warren Buffet fell for it.

I was trying to say that it is not that they tricked him because they are so sly. They might have tricked themselves just as well. So it is not that had some secret great vision to take his money. They made mistake and they didn't see them and neither did Buffett.

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

#40

Post by mathattack » Fri, Mar 04, 2016, 12:59 AM UTC

Here's what I don't get... If you have any options at all, why stay at a company with sub-par technology that abuses their workers? They've been stuck in low 3 Glassdoor [0] range for a while. It's layoff after layoff as they slowly dismantle the company. Why stay? Geographic limitations? Narrow skillsets?

[0] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/IBM-Reviews-E354.htm#trend...