That sounds strikingly familiar????
Reduce their work force by 3/4? When did they announce this? How has it been kept so quiet?
What? Again?!
I thought they went out of business a few decades back.
It would be nice if the author had a clue ....
IBM Hardware Products are still amoung, if not, the best. The US Market has been tanking and there is no need to maintain the workforce where there is no demand. Asia is “growing” and so is the demand - thats why they are investing there.
Manufacturing of almost ALL computer products has been shifted to Asia, regardless of who (including the authors belove Apple!).
Programmers and Co in India aren’t top notch? THE MARKET DOES NOT CARE! They want cheap. It’s been that way for over a decade. And you get what you pay for.
Sales and Technicians? You need those where the customers are - and - THAT IS NOT in the US (or Europe) at the moment.
Global Services is IBM’s business now and they are struggling to renew their major contracts because their offshore competitors are now viable on that scale and can usually deliver high customer satisfaction, so IBM can’t renew their contracts at their current pricing structures and they have to find savings in their delivery.
Whether they can successfully reinvent themselves yet again and in that way is still to be seen, but I think the inefficient layers of administrative overhead and effective management of offshore delivery are more of issue than their shifting to a higher ratio of offshore labor.
IBM: Technologies Graveyard.
Then somebody came out with PCs and I never looked back.
Sitting here today in front of an Apple in fact.
Corporate folks went DEC then went Dell ~ for a variety of reasons America's then largest employer just didn't need IBM anymore, and neither did I.
The scent of death was on the land. Kodak went down last year. GM went down 5 years ago. Things change.
“IBM seems to believe it is cheaper to replace a skilled worker with two or three unskilled workers to do the same job. That is like hiring nine women to make a baby in one month. While it looks good on paper it is not practical and is not working. The language barrier for IBM’s Indian staff is huge, for example. Troubleshooting, which was once performed on conference calls, is now done with instant messaging because the teams speak so poorly. Problems that an experienced person could fix in a few minutes are taking an army of folks an hour to fix. This is infuriating and alarming to IBM’s customers.”
ummmm, yes.
How about an experienced guy in the field (like me) who can fix it in minutes?
(No, I have never worked for IBM but that is the new paradigm across all of technology)
Looks like they’re backing off. Trial balloon. Show across someone’s bow?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/opensource/224700807
IBM Denies Plan To Cut 75% Of Workforce
Big Blue dismisses report that it intends to replace three-quarters of its global staff with independent contractors.
By Paul McDougall InformationWeek
Boards are going to have to do a better job of picking CEOs. Anybody can talk a good fight about running a business. If we could sell talking, our country would own the world. Look at our President. He talks a good fight, but he’s inexperienced and dumber than donuts. Hire the best person for the big jobs. Hint - that is the person who will get the most effective and efficient use out of the resources.
0bama can destroy even the best run enterprises.
BUMP
This is not news to my family..........
I happen to be pleased by what IBM has been doing: creating increasing value for its shareholders. Look at the stock price charts over the past few years and you'll see how IBM has been greatly outperforming the market in general, based primarily on its bottom line strategy. That's what a publicly held private corporation is there to do!
Make or perish is the future for American companies. Without creativeness they will eventually slowly twist in the wind.
Bump for later
IBM lost it completely when it ceded the consumer market to focus on what? While they still have a huge profit line, they are no longer a company that matters to consumers. Their name is not on everyone’s lips for innovation or design. Most people haven’t heard of them in years.
From the consumer point of view they sound more and more like “the world’s largest typewriter manufacturer.”
Ruh Ro.