My husband never got over the change in the company ethics and the loss of his job. I came home one day and found my husband shot dead. He had taken his own life and had left a suicide note stating that IBM had ruined his life. He had been unable to obtain a new position as he was 50 years old and had worked for IBM for 25 years. He had always been a one in all of his appraisals over the years and had been given many awards for his work.
I am now left to try and pick up the pieces of my life and have to try and be there for my two children and my three grandchildren who will never get to know their granddad. YES IBM HAS CHANGED and not for the best
I hope someone in NY politics is realizing that giving IBM tax deductions yields nothing for the state. It's only screwing the state and employees. If NY should decide to do this again, then they should make them agree to a layoff freeze for at least 2 years or longer. IBM is f'ing the state at every turn.
The IBMese for a layoff these days is a "resource action," and it has been IBM's practice in the past several years to do layoffs by the handful in various divisions and product lines and geographies to keep the aggregate numbers low enough to not trigger a reporting requirement to the Securities and Exchange Commission. There's nothing illegal about this, presumably.
There is a fair amount of churn among the employee base within a $100bn-plus corporation, and IBM has learned to use attrition and laser-focused layoffs in a way that it never did back in the 1990s, when it had massive layoffs. That churn means people are always jumpy, and there are constant whispers about job losses. ...
Apparently, managers are being told to tell employees they have "no specific information" on layoffs - presumably, if the mutterings turn out to be true, to allow IBM to make a formal announcement inside and outside the company at the same time. But IBMers started getting laid off in December in small numbers already, and the cat is out of the bag. Even if there is not a massive cull, with the surgical employee firing practices Big Blue uses, the number of job losses could be nonetheless large across the entire company.
While it would be a mistake to take too much from CEO forecasts and predictions, obviously executives at companies which span almost every major industry are cutting costs and personnel. No one needs to show that it is a vicious circle for the broader economy. A man without a jobs is a man who spends nothing. The same is true of a business that folds.
Wall St. analysts are still posting earnings forecasts that show many large companies making a lot of money next year. Expectations are that IBM's earnings per share will rise from $8.71 in 2008 to $8.99 this year. If someone could make it through security at the company's headquarters and get the straight dope from the tech company's CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, he would certainly say that anyone who believes those forecasts belongs in a state mental institution.
By most measures, the American economy lost between 2 million and 2.5 million jobs last year. As that number rises sharply this year, the IBMs cut as many people as the GMs. That says more about what the second half of the year looks like than any other set of numbers laying around.
IBM recommended boosting broadband Internet access in the country, further computerizing healthcare record-keeping, and installing so-called "smart grid" technology in the electric distribution system in America to allow consumers to better regulate their electric use (and cut their bills by avoiding peak usage times).
Asking IBM if $30bn in IT investments could stimulate jobs is a bit like asking a four-year-old not only if they want a lollipop, but if they want to eat a whole bag of pops. What kind of answer do you expect from IBM? "Not many jobs, Mr. President-elect?" Not in this reality.
As many of us know full well, IT helps companies get rid of jobs, and a lot of IT jobs have taken flight overseas where labor costs are lower than in the Western economies. And IBM is one of the biggest outsourcers and offshorers in the world.
So not only is IBM's contention that a $30bn investment in these three areas (and presumably others) create 900,000 jobs in America suspect, it is laughable. What such a stimulus package might do is cushion the blow of a bad economy to server, storage, and networking equipment makers looking for some big projects to bid on. But that is a short-term phenomenon, and once the gear is bought and the implementation is done, the jobs are over.
On the margin side, as you know IBM Software/Middleware contributes about 1/3 of IBMs' total gross margin dollars. Mills has been buying other software companies at an aggressive rate to make it appear that IBM's software is growing at a steady clip. Lotus has very little upside left, but Tivoli is adding some real growth to IBM software with smart new products. WebSphere is doing well but with declining host sales, operating system revenue doesn't appear to have much to grow on. I fail to see how "smoke and mirrors" numbers can make software targets for too much longer.
All in all it looks like tough sledding to me for 09 for Big Blue here in the States. As a stockholder and pensioner it doesn't look good to me. I can only hope my outlook is wrong.
Staff Retention: First, let's put aside the knee-jerk reaction of, "In times like these they should be thankful they even have a job." It really isn't very helpful. If you've had to make staff cuts, the people you have left are the best and most valuable, and you probably have had to sacrifice bench strength. In this situation you really can't afford to have a key person leave. ...
Training: Training budgets are usually the first thing to be cut when times get tough. Yet at the same time, training can be critically important during these times. People are handling multiple responsibilities, many of which they had to assume quickly due to staff cuts after receiving little or no training.
The mag said that Lenovo, which acquired IBM’s struggling PC unit for $1.25bn – as well as an assumption of debt – in 2005, plans to announce a major restructuring plan on 8 January that will include a management reshuffle. Big Blue’s decision to sell its PC unit saw Lenovo take on a business that had suffered nearly $1bn in losses in the three years leading up to the acquisition. More recently IBM, which still has shares in the unit, has continued to retreat from Lenovo following a series of stake sell-offs over the past year.
Oh, and well done to Forrester Research. Satyam on Monday issued a press release citing a Forrester report praising Satyam for its "bottom up innovation" strategy and calling on other organisations to "emulate Satyam by unleashing and harnessing their firms' grassroots creative energy". Just don't copy the creative accounting which was going on at the top of the firm.
The company, India's fourth-largest information technology firm, with more than 53,000 employees, services several Fortune 500 companies, including General Motors, General Electric and IBM. The range of services includes application software development, engineering design solutions and back-office customer services. The investment firm DSP Merrill Lynch immediately informed the Indian stock exchange that it has terminated its engagement with the software giant, which is also registered on the New York Stock Exchange. ...
Financial observers expressed fears that other Indian technology companies might be hiding accounting skeletons similar to those of Satyam, casting doubt on the celebrated outsourcing industry and oversight of its companies. Observers worried that the scandal could erode the confidence of overseas clients. ...
Ironically, Raju received the "entrepreneur of the year" award in 2007 from the consulting firm Ernst & Young. The council of the Institute of Directors said it will be withdrawing the Golden Peacock Global award for best corporate governance that it gave Satyam in 2008.
An editorial in Thursday's English daily Hindustan Times said: "Much more than the fate of one company and its investors is at stake here, the scandal could taint the entire edifice of outsourcing." It said that the industry was changing the rules of modern economics and had posted $40 billion in software and information technology-related exports last year, and was growing at 35 percent annually.
Still, investors and clients are going to want answers. For instance, they're demanding to know how Satyam's auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, endorsed the company's accounts. "Auditors' complicity in what seems to be a multiyear misstatement of financials will also be explored," said CLSA's Vajpayee in his Jan. 7 report. Already, India's Registrar of Companies had begun a probe into a failed acquisition last month by Satyam of companies run by Raju's two sons. Now the country's securities regulator will add its weight by investigating the PwC audit. PwC issued a statement saying it was examining the issue.
Madoff’s operations lacked any sort of transparency. His clients, including a number of large 401(k) plans, simply didn’t know where their assets were or how they were invested. If your plans, or the plans of your clients, utilize Collective Trusts, Collective Funds, Unit Investment Trusts, or other tools with similar names, you face a similar lack of transparency.
Fewer than half of these terminated pensions were replaced by another retirement plan. Active participants in only 585 of the 1,216 eliminated plans have access to a successor retirement plan - typically a 401(k) plan (360 plans). The next most common replacement offered was a profit sharing plan (115 plans).
Whether it is Wal-Mart or the National Restaurant Association, many companies and corporate groups financing the opposition fear that their companies and industries will be among labor’s earliest organizing targets should the bill become law. Labor leaders say they are setting their sights on several industries, like banks and big-box retailers like Wal-Mart or Target, where unions have had virtually no success.
“We’re going to organize in the basic industries of our unions: construction, hospitality, health care, retail, food production and manufacturing,” said Tom Woodruff, director of strategic organizing for Change to Win, a federation of seven unions that includes the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers. “Those are jobs that are going to stay in the country. The question is whether those jobs are going to be decent middle-class jobs.” ...
Labor leaders say they do not oppose secret-ballot elections, but rather the bitter two-month management-versus-union campaigns that often precede elections. Union leaders say those campaigns are usually unfair because corporations often fire union supporters and press their anti-union views day and night in one-on-one sessions and large meetings while union organizers are prohibited from company property.
“There are currently an estimated 18.5 million American retirees and baby boomers in the United States with health benefits being significantly threatened,” Miller says. “If cancelled by the corporations they once worked for, most would be dumped into the federal and state healthcare systems. In effect, this means their former employers would be getting an additional back-door federal bailout at the expense of the taxpayer.”
The health care coverage Miller is referring to is earned retiree benefits that tens of millions of Americans earned and paid for during their working years. He says that for whatever reason, many corporations never actually set that money aside and are using the current financial turmoil to threaten the cancellation and further reduction of these benefits. ...
Behind its efforts, ProtectSeniors.org has harnessed the support of retirees from 285 companies, 36 unions, 76 municipal, state and federal retiree groups, in addition to 14 retiree associations. “Lately, economists, talk show hosts, journalists and even politicians have been blaming America’s retirees and union workers for the economic downturn, calling our earned retirement health coverage legacy costs and burdensome,” says C. William Jones, a retiree from Verizon Communications and president of the 100,000-member Association of BellTel Retirees. “I, and tens of millions of retirees like me, worked decades to earn those benefits, taking less pay and forgoing days off to fund them. For companies to now imply that retirees are a liability to them and America is morally offensive and absolutely inaccurate.”
Advocates of the legislation argue that over many years, companies used the promise of post-employment health care coverage to induce employees to stay with that employer or, in some cases, to take early retirement. Companies did not agree to pay retiree benefits out of the goodness of their hearts or social well-being; there were significant financial benefits and tax breaks for them. They further explain that employers benefited financially by not having to pay Social Security and payroll taxes on these benefits.
“Funding these benefits could be deferred by companies in years when earnings were low, unlike payroll that must be paid on time,” Jones says. “Since pensions are based on a percentage of wages, companies also saved on long-term pension costs.” ...
“America’s retirees are not here asking for a handout or a bailout,” Miller says. “We merely want companies to live up to the promises they made. Give us the health benefits we earned and paid for over decades of loyal service.”
Editor's note: IBM was on the forefront of American corporations' reneging on decades-long promises to its employees of lifetime retiree medical coverage, reducing and later eliminating retiree health care benefits, announced in 1999 along with with its disastrous (for employees, not for the company) cash balance pension plan in 1999.
Many retirement experts have come to a similar conclusion: The 401(k) system, which has turned countless amateurs like Ms. Gardner into their own pension-fund managers, has serious shortcomings.
"This is the biggest test that the 401(k) plan has seen to date, and it has failed," says Robyn Credico, head of defined-contribution consulting at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, noting that many baby boomers are ready to retire. "We've put people close to retirement in a very challenging position."
The most obvious pitfall is that 401(k) plans shift all retirement-planning risks -- not saving enough, making poor investment choices, outliving savings -- to untrained individuals, who often don't have the time, inclination or know-how to manage them. But even when workers make good choices, a market meltdown near the end of their working careers can still blow their savings to smithereens. "That seems like such a fundamental flaw," says Alicia Munnell, director of Boston College's Center for Retirement Research. "It's so crazy to have a system where people can lose half their assets right before they retire." ...
Part of the problem, critics say, is that the 401(k) is trying to fill a role it was never designed to play. The plans were born with little fanfare in 1978 when Congress added section 401(k) to the Internal Revenue Code. Initially, many employers saw them as a supplement to company-funded defined-benefit plans and Social Security -- and a way for executives to stash some of their compensation in tax-deferred accounts.
But the legislation marked the beginning of the end of professionally managed pensions that provided guaranteed benefits to retirees. As big employers recognized that 401(k)s are substantially cheaper than defined-benefit plans, the employee-managed accounts moved from supporting role to center stage. Many workers didn't even participate in the voluntary plans, which meant that employers didn't have to make matching contributions. What's more, employers aren't required to contribute to the plans at all.
It is only fair to note that President Bush can also lay claim to some signal achievements in health care — achievements that we urge President-elect Barack Obama to continue and develop further.
Speaking at a news conference in Washington, he provided no details of his approach to rein in Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to consume a growing share of government spending as the baby boom generation ages into retirement over the next two decades. But he said he would have more to say about the issue when he unveiled a budget next month.
Mr. Daschle spoke with passion about the hardship he had witnessed among people without insurance, who he said faced “total economic destruction” if they became ill. “The stories of personal bankruptcy are the ones that come back to me so frequently,” he said. He predicted that “as we face a harsh and deep recession, the problem of the uninsured is likely to grow.” Mr. Obama has promised to offer affordable coverage to the more than 45 million people who are uninsured.
Unfortunately, the hearing did not tell us much at all about how the incoming Obama administration intends to pay for its emerging health care programs or how, for all of his smoothness at the hearing, Mr. Daschle will deal with the very real and very big differences his team has with Republicans on this and other vital issues.
Mr. Jones is just one of the retirees calling on the 111th Congress to act immediately towards passage of a bipartisan bill, titled The Emergency Retiree Health Benefits Protection Act (in the 110th Congress), which would prohibit employers from making post-retirement cancellations or reductions of health benefits that retirees were entitled to, without placing mandates on the employers as to what health plans they provide or monetary ceilings on the amount of health benefits.
"But dependency on government has never been bad for the rich. The pretense of the laissez-faire people is that only the poor are dependent on government, while the rich take care of themselves. This argument manages to ignore all of modern history, which shows a consistent record of laissez-faire for the poor, but enormous government intervention for the rich." From Economic Justice: The American Class System, from the book Declarations of Independence by Howard Zinn.
This is one reason the collapse of our financial system has inspired not merely a national but a global crisis of confidence. Good God, the world seems to be saying, if they don’t know what they are doing with money, who does?
Incredibly, intelligent people the world over remain willing to lend us money and even listen to our advice; they appear not to have realized the full extent of our madness. We have at least a brief chance to cure ourselves. But first we need to ask: of what?
To that end consider the strange story of Harry Markopolos. Mr. Markopolos is the former investment officer with Rampart Investment Management in Boston who, for nine years, tried to explain to the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard L. Madoff couldn’t be anything other than a fraud. Mr. Madoff’s investment performance, given his stated strategy, was not merely improbable but mathematically impossible. And so, Mr. Markopolos reasoned, Bernard Madoff must be doing something other than what he said he was doing.
In his devastatingly persuasive 17-page letter to the S.E.C., Mr. Markopolos saw two possible scenarios. In the “Unlikely” scenario: Mr. Madoff, who acted as a broker as well as an investor, was “front-running” his brokerage customers. A customer might submit an order to Madoff Securities to buy shares in I.B.M. at a certain price, for example, and Madoff Securities instantly would buy I.B.M. shares for its own portfolio ahead of the customer order. If I.B.M.’s shares rose, Mr. Madoff kept them; if they fell he fobbed them off onto the poor customer.
In the “Highly Likely” scenario, wrote Mr. Markopolos, “Madoff Securities is the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme.” Which, as we now know, it was.
Harry Markopolos sent his report to the S.E.C. on Nov. 7, 2005 — more than three years before Mr. Madoff was finally exposed — but he had been trying to explain the fraud to them since 1999. He had no direct financial interest in exposing Mr. Madoff — he wasn’t an unhappy investor or a disgruntled employee. There was no way to short shares in Madoff Securities, and so Mr. Markopolos could not have made money directly from Mr. Madoff’s failure. To judge from his letter, Harry Markopolos anticipated mainly downsides for himself: he declined to put his name on it for fear of what might happen to him and his family if anyone found out he had written it. And yet the S.E.C.’s cursory investigation of Mr. Madoff pronounced him free of fraud.
The greed of corporate America is a fundamental premise of Sanders' view, and now we have witnessed the way that a hunger for riches can warp the view of otherwise bright people and create perverse incentives for abandoning common sense. Those inclined to refrain from the harsh tone of Sanders' rhetoric may quarrel about whether people on Wall Street were motivated by greed or were acting in good faith on information distorted by wishful thinking. What it comes down to is that when a system governed by the profit motive fails to hold in check the worst tendencies of those seeking profits, the whole country suffers.
Now the country has come to Sanders. He has been urging laws to hold banks and other institutions of capitalism accountable, to end corporate welfare and to enact tax policies fairer to ordinary Americans. That is likely to happen. He has been urging a system of health care for all, and we are heading in that direction.
Editor's note: Senator Sanders has always been a dependable ally in IBMers' struggles against their company's pension and retirement medical cuts. I remember well how CEO Lou Gerstner arrogantly refused to take a question from Bernie at the IBM Stockholders' meeting in Cleveland. Thank you, Bernie, for being the peoples' Senator, unlike most of Congress which is beholden only to corporate America.
This report shows that, to maintain their employer-based health coverage under COBRA, most unemployed people would have to devote an unrealistically high proportion of their incomes to health insurance. For many, it would take their entire unemployment check and more to continue coverage for themselves and their families. However, if laid-off workers do not continue their employer-based coverage by electing COBRA and instead seek coverage in the individual health insurance market, those with health problems are likely to find that no insurer will sell them a policy that will cover their pre-existing conditions at any price. Thus, many American workers find themselves in a catch-22.
The report, released on Friday by the Commonwealth Fund, suggests plans outlined by Obama and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus could cover almost all Americans. But to hit that mark, they would need to require all Americans to obtain coverage and include efforts to cut administrative costs and boost purchasing efficiencies.
This round of layoffs was a done completely under-the-table. The next round is going to be make a bigger impact, once they fine tune their offshore staff. My biggest regret this year has been working during the vacation time I scheduled when my daughter was born over the summer!!!! I actually thought that it would make a difference if I close my projects under budget and ahead of schedule. My management team does not care one way or another, in the end they are looking at the final numbers... what is the net profit this employee has brought to the table.
The fact is, I should have left a long time ago... I just got too comfortable in an environment that wasn't really fostering professional growth. This RA has motivated me to start my own consulting firm. I pulled together a nice team of developers (in the US, India, and Ukraine), and have solidified 4 contracts with mid-sized corps. Hopefully this will get me where I want to be, if not, I guess I can always go out and find a job.
A little advice if you get RA'ed: Negotiate your severance package... I got 9 months pay with 12 months of insurance. It doesn't hurt to ask. Take advantage of the retraining dollars. IBM will pay up to $3000 towards any education. I'm using mine toward SAP training. Independent SAP project managers make anywhere from $75 to 150/hr... IBM also competes for SAP contracts, but they don't have enough SAP resources. So I can probably come back as a contractor on a project to project basis in GBS... if not, there's a TON of SAP projects I can bid on! -10_year_IBMer-
So it seems that working 12-14 hour days, nights and weekends isn't enough for IBM, now we have to add a 4+ hour daily commute to the mix. Seems to me, the purpose of this "Global Delivery Center" idea is to get as many employees as they can to quit so IBM can save money on paying out a severance package. For those who are RA'ed because you live more than 50 miles away and don't relocate, you are the lucky ones. At least you can get a severance package and be eligible for unemployment benefits. Those who will have to work in Boulder and subject themselves to a dangerous and exhausting daily commute (we can call it the IBM death march) will be denied the ability to get a severance package and access to unemployment benefits. How low can IBM management go? stay tuned... -married_to_ibm_but_a_divorce_is_in_progress-
Even if you keep your job, paying 2 mortgages with the stress of relocating simply isn't worth it. IBM knows how to play the game to their advantage, and they're doing it. If you're offered a GDF position and decline it, you get no severance once your 30 days is up - IBM knows this, so they make it hard for the people over 50 miles from the GDF to relocate to avoid paying a severance.
All we can hope for is to wait for the GDFs to fail miserably at customer sat. IBM will be paying more than they have before for missed SLAs, and I would bet 2009/2010 will show IBM losing more accounts to competition. The key question is, does IBM care? If they plan on selling, hell no they don't care. -waiting_for_the_axe-
Alliance Reply: Okay, let's review: You are an 'At Will Employee'. You have no contract or written agreement with IBM, as an individual or a collective group. IBM can impose just about any requirement on you, that they want. "At Will Employment" is a double edged sword. It allows you to quit anytime for any reason or no reason. Same as IBM's options: Fire you for any reason or no reason. Labor laws vary from state to state; however, most labor laws are skewed in favor of business, NOT labor. So, to answer your question bluntly: You're pretty much out of luck legally. It isn't even really worth it to hire an attorney to see if you have a case. What IS worth the effort is organizing your co-workers and fighting for a contract and a seat at the bargaining table for ALL non-management IBM employees. The Trick is to start that before you get to this point...Something we've been telling everyone here since 1999-2000. We're truly sorry to hear about your situation. We hope it works out for you.
Let's look at the backward logic of what they are doing: They propose to take people who are working out of home offices, who are available 24x7 and who generally work 12-14 hour days because they can rationalize this amount of effort with the ability to work in a home office. IBM management now wants to throw all of this workplace efficiency away to force people to report to cubicles in a distant office after an exhausting commute and *supposedly* work an 8 hour day. All of this to gain some kind of efficiency! I think not! The only efficiency that is made here is to replace the higher paid US workers with foreign nationals who will work in India and have a phone extension in Boulder (just for show to keep any curious government or media types from asking too many questions).
This is clearly an intent to stimulate a large amount of resignations without the cost of severance. Some IBM HR team probably came up with this idea and will be well compensated for their brilliance! I am confident that if everyone moves en masse ' to the Boulder GDC they won 't be there for more than a couple of weeks before they are let go for a different reason! [Does anyone know if the Boulder location has the cubicle space for all of these folks?]
The alliance 's reply to my previous "whining post " is right on! We should have organized a long time ago to fight this kind of thing. Let 's all get organized now! Perhaps as a group we can force some kind of class action lawsuit. We may not be able to save the jobs, but we may be able to get some severance and "laid off " status so that we can qualify for unemployment benefits. That 's better than nothing for our careers and hard work, which it seems is just what IBM management is offering us. Let 's stop bitching and start organizing. NOW! -married_to_ibm_but_I_dont_know_about_the_future-
#2: if your commute to the GDF site is less than 50 miles from where you live, OR if your commute to the GDF site is 20 miles or less longer than your current commute, your JOB moves to the GDF and you are required to. You have the option of keeping your job at its new location, or if you don't show up, you're considered to have turned down a "comparable job offer" and therefore voluntarily resign from IBM. In other words, if your current commute is 49 miles, and your commute to the GDF would be 69 miles, then you'll be required to take the job at the GDF site or you resign. There is NO M&L for anyone whose job moves to the GDF. This has all been approved by IBM HR and IBM legal. -Intheknow-
If we had more managers that can do more than take attendance we (computer / phone operators) could all be working from home. If they are telling you to come back in then they are just trying to get you to quit. Remember you are just a cog to management. Experience means nothing to them. I once saw a whole department in Austin let go to be replaced by foreign contractors on site the next week. No knowledge transfer at all. The contractors just kind of stood around till they shut the project down.
Another interesting development. When Tivoli was acquired by IBM they promised to not change the culture. This week the last vestige of the Tivoli culture, free drinks, was removed. It will be the last straw to some. Of course the major miscalculation in all this is right now there are not many openings out there so they are unlikely to get the "voluntary" numbers they are looking for. So after the big move(s) I'd expect more layoffs. -IBM=IveBeenMoved-
But then the company started stacking the deck against us (no PBC bonus, unachievable goals, moving critical resources offshore, etc). My colleagues and I would start to voice our concerns in the hopes we would be heard and something would change....nothing changed, it just got worse. And the whole time this is going on, they are telling you "you should be lucky to have a job" and "the grass isn’t greener on the other side".
The effect of this was an erosion of confidence in my abilities and skills, and that I wouldn't be able to find employment outside IBM. Well to all those who have wondered whether it would be better outside Big Blue, I would say it is and I couldn’t be happier….no regrets. I hope you all get that same feeling wherever you work! -gladtobegone-
Vault's IBM Business Consulting Services message board is a popular hangout for IBM BCS employees, including many employees acquired from PwC. A few sample posts follow:
The latest directive is taking the IT services people who are scattered all over the nation and force them to relocate to a single location - this includes remote employees. The modus operandi is that the employee will be told their job effective Monday will be onsite at the new location permanently. Moving and transfer costs will NOT be paid by the company and choosing to not do the forced move will be considered a resignation, meaning no unemployment benefits and probably a minimal severance package. If you do accept the move, IBM only commits to keep the employee a year.
IBM's overall goal here is to have a minimal contractor workforce in the USA except for executives and their direct staff. Everyone else will be contractors or non-USA resources. It takes very special immoral, unethical, little Satans to come up with a strategy this evil. Burn and rot boys and girls!
I can tell you that within the L&K Division of GBS things are an absolute mess. I am surrounded by more demotivated IBM employees and management than ever before and the GBS consultants out in the field feel that the business model is failing in most respects.
With unhappy employees comes unhappy clients. With unhappy clients comes a lousy reputation. Eventually profits will fall and yes, your delighted stockholders will not be quite as delighted as they may seem right now. You have to remember that IBM's reputation as a blue chip is holding its stock up right now... people are in panic mode about the economy and of course "blue chips" seem to make good investment sense. Once news of the layoffs and massive IBM employee offshoring movement hits the international airwaves, I would bet that perceptions will change.
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