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US: IBM fires 111800
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    IBM is expected to go through a massive reorg next month that will reportedly see 26% of its 430,000-strong work force let go, or 111,800 people.

    I’ve been hearing since before Christmas about Project Chrome, the code name for what has been touted to me as the biggest reorganization in IBM history. Well, Project Chrome is finally upon us, triggered I suppose by this week’s announcement of an 11th consecutive quarter of declining revenue for IBM. Project Chrome is bad news, not good. Customers and employees alike should expect the worst.

    To fix its business problems and speed up its “transformation,” next week about 26 percent of IBM’s employees will be getting phone calls from their managers. A few hours later a package will appear on their doorsteps with all the paperwork. Project Chrome will hit many of the worldwide services operations. The USA will be hit hard, but so will other locations. IBM’s contractors can expect regular furloughs in 2015. One in four IBMers reading this column will probably start looking for a new job next week. Those employees will all be gone by the end of February.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertcringely/2015/01/22/next-weeks-bloodbath-at-ibm-wont-fix-the-real-problem/

    http://www.itworld.com/article/2875112/ibm-is-about-to-get-hit-with-a-massive-reorg-and-layoffs.html

  • 3 Replies sorted by
  • karlkarl

    Hmm... I'm scheduled for an on-site meeting with a group of IBM employees in two weeks. Maybe I should reconfirm shortly before that... just so I'm not travelling in vain...

    (I still have no idea why IBM ditched all of their "real, material" business in favor of trying to sell "clouds" and similar ethereal stuff. Must have been a feverish fantasy of unlimited profitability.)

  • MarcioKMarcioK

    Response from IBM in the end of Forbes article:

    "Response from IBM (via its Hong Kiong office’s blog):

    IBM does not comment on rumors or speculation. However, we’ll make an exception when the speculation is stupid. That’s the case here, where an industry gadfly is trying to make noise about how IBM is about to lay off 26 percent of its workforce. That’s over 100,000 people, which is totally ludicrous.

    The fact is that IBM already announced, after 3Q earnings report, that the company would take a $600 million charge for restructuring. That’s several thousand people. Not 10,000, or 100,000. Moreover, IBM currently has job postings for more than 10,000 professionals worldwide, with more than half of them in growth areas such as cloud, analytics, security and mobile technologies. IBM’s new cloud leader, Senior Vice President Robert LeBlanc, told Fortune this week that IBM has plans to hire 1,000 cloud professionals.

    A little perspective on IBM’s earnings is in order. The company still makes huge profit… $21 billion in operating pre-tax profit last year. And IBM’s “strategic imperatives” represent 27% ( and growing ) of the company’s total revenue… $25 billion in revenues, up 16 percent. We have high growth in a substantial portion of the portfolio, and those areas (CAMSS) have better-than-normal margins in areas that matter most to clients today — that’s the heart of the IBM transformation."

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    IBM does not comment on rumors or speculation. However, we’ll make an exception when the speculation is stupid. That’s the case here, where an industry gadfly is trying to make noise about how IBM is about to lay off 26 percent of its workforce. That’s over 100,000 people, which is totally ludicrous.

    It does not look as official response at all, so has little value.

    Let's just wait and see.

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