Welcome to IBM Employee News and Links

Highlights—January 25, 2014

• USA Today: IBM sees $1 billion charge for more job cuts. Big Blue may cut 10,000 to 15,000 workers in 2014, analyst estimates. By Alistair Barr. Excerpts: IBM is planning to cut thousands more jobs this year and the technology company expects to take about $1 billion in charges from the re-organization effort. IBM reported lackluster fourth-quarter results late Tuesday that included a 26% slump in hardware revenue and a slight decline in services revenue.

  Chief Financial Officer Martin Schroeter told analysts after the results that the company will take a "workforce re-balancing" charge of about $1 billion this year, roughly in line with what it did in 2013. ...

  IBM typically re-balances its giant workforce every year, but the job cuts in 2013 and the reductions coming in 2014 are a bit bigger than in the past because the company has been struggling with weak revenue growth, the analyst explained.

  It costs IBM about $70,000 to lay an employee off, so if the latest re-organization is mostly related to staff reductions, that suggests the company may be cutting 10,000 to 15,000 workers, Sacconaghi estimated.

• InformationWeek: IBM Plans Layoffs, New Investments. By Doug Henschen. Excerpts: IBM keeps meeting ever-higher earnings-per-share targets, but after reporting another year of declining growth in 2013, the company on Tuesday announced plans for "workforce rebalancing" -- code words for layoffs -- as well as new investments in emerging areas aimed at returning the company to growth.

  Its lackluster performance in 2013 was marked by a 5% year-over-year decline in revenue (2% in constant currencies) to $99.8 billion. Operating income was up 2% from the prior year to $18 billion, despite a whopping $1.7 billion decline in profit tied to IBM's struggling hardware business. ...

  The bad news is that things are going to get worse before they get better, with an anticipated $1 billion workforce action expected in IBM's historically weak first quarter. A similar $1 billion effort in the second quarter of 2013 eliminated 6,500 to 8,000 positions across IBM's massive global workforce of more than 430,000 employees. ...

  True to form, IBM once again promised higher earnings per share for the year ahead, with a target of $18 for 2014. Meeting that longstanding goal of $20 per share by 2015 would certainly please investors, but IBM competes in an industry in which vendors don't always put investors ahead of their position in the industry. SAP on Tuesday rolled back profit expectations so it could grow more aggressively in the cloud. Meanwhile, cloud pure-plays like Salesforce.com and Workday routinely run in the red, keeping investors at bay with strong growth and cash-flow figures and the promise of a long-term payoff.

• Binghamton Press-Connects: Cuts in the cards for IBM: Insiders say managers must list candidates for 'resource action' by Friday. Insiders say managers must make lists by Friday. By Craig Wolfe. Excerpts: IBM managers are working on their lists and checking them twice, but this is not about Santa Claus. It’s about downsizing. People with access to inside-IBM information have told the Poughkeepsie Journal that managers have to identify candidates by Friday for a future “resource action” to eliminate jobs. Managers in the U.S. Systems and Technology Group were told they needed to do some planning in case a resource action is approved. Employees are not being told at this point. ...

  The Alliance@IBM, a union-sponsored workers group, said the downsizing was code-named “Apollo” and urged employees to send in resource action packages when they arrive so the actions can be reported. IBM hasn’t issued such details for years.

• Wall Street Journal: IBM Software Blamed for Troubled State Health Exchanges. By Clint Boulton. Excerpts: Software from IBM Corp. has been singled out for technical problems hurting both the Maryland and Minnesota online health exchanges. Officials from both states have blamed IBM’s Cúram, used to determine consumers’ eligibility for coverage, for a number of performance issues, including losing consumer applications.

  With the March 31 deadline for open enrollment period fast approaching, state officials have upped their rhetoric. Last week, the Maryland Health Connection cited Cúram and its “serious software defects.” Previously, the state blamed a squabble between two primary contractors as the source for the exchange’s numerous bugs.

  Last month, in a December letter to IBM CEO Virginia Rometty, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton detailed 21 problems MNsure encountered with Cúram, including applications stuck in pending status, as well as inadequate documentation and duplicate applications. ...

  Responding to Maryland’s claims, IBM spokesman Clint Roswell said that the exchange is improving and that IBM is still working with the contractors on the site. “Based on our latest statistics on the exchange’s performance, we are seeing more than 95% of consumers entering the site now having a positive experience,” Mr. Roswell said in an email to CIO Journal. IBM started offering the software when it acquired Dublin, Ireland-based Cúram Software Ltd. in 2011. Cúram means ”care and protection” in Irish.

  But an official for Maryland Health Connection told CIO Journal Tuesday that while the exchange’s user experience has improved, “significant issues with the Cúram software and other system components still need to be fixed before the website can function as it should.”

• Bloomberg: Lenovo to Buy IBM Server Unit for $2.3 Billion Amid Slump. By Alex Barinka. Excerpts: Related Lenovo's Smith Sees `Great Marriage' to IBM Unit International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) agreed to sell its low-end server business for $2.3 billion to Lenovo Group Ltd., decreasing its reliance on computer hardware as sales of the products plunge. The deal price includes about $2 billion of cash, with the rest coming in shares of Beijing-based Lenovo, the two companies said today in a statement today. The transaction now faces regulatory scrutiny, including a likely national-security review that could slow or scuttle the purchase. ...

  Even if the deal clears those hurdles, Lenovo could still lose some IBM customers in the U.S., though that may be offset by gains in its home market of China, said Stephen Yang, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sun Hung Kai Financial. “Lenovo may still face some headwinds selling servers to American institutions and corporates due to worries over counterintelligence,” Yang said. “Lenovo would likely focus on growing its China market first, like they’ve always done with any business.”

• Seeking Alpha: IBM - Revenues Continue To Slide As Stabilization Is Not In Sight Yet. Excerpts: IBM generated full year revenues of $99.8 billion for 2013, down 4.6% compared to the year before. Net earnings fell by merely 0.7% to $16.5 billion while diluted earnings per share rose by 4.0% to $14.94 per share.

  This earnings per share growth was obviously not driven by operational growth, but by repurchasing shares to drive earnings per share. While IBM has access to roughly $11.1 billion in cash, equivalents and marketable securities, its debt pile has increased to levels just shy of $40 billion. This results in a net debt position of almost $29 billion. Note that this even excludes little over $16 billion in retirement and pension obligations.

  Clearly IBM is not happy with the results, with the key executives foregoing the annual incentive payments for the past year. ...

  Living In Borrowed Times. Instead of focusing on revenue growth, IBM appears to be fully focused on earnings per share. While operational revenue and earnings growth stalled, the company resorted to share repurchases to drive earnings per share growth. In the period 2010-2012, IBM repurchased $35 billion worth of shares, while paying out little over $10 billion in dividends. This means that payouts were being roughly equal to earnings of $47 billion for the period. Note that this excludes cash being used for making acquisitions during this time period.

• The Register: IBM's top brass forgo bonuses after drop in yearly profits. Big Blue execs won't be getting their annual pats on the back. By Brid-Aine Parnell. Excerpts: IBM's top execs are forgoing their bonuses this year after a five per cent drop in sales and a per cent dip in net profit. Chief executive Ginni Rometty and other senior management will graciously eschew their presumably performance-related bonuses since the company's performance has not been all that great, particularly in its hardware division.

  Selected reader comments follow:

  • Bah! What is this "bonus" you speak of? I have also heard of "raises" and "cost of living increments" but I can't remember having seen one in years.
  • It doesn't bode well for the rest of the IBM workforce, who haven't had payrises or bonuses for the previous 'disappointing results' commonly associated with 'consecutive quarters of double digit growth'. If they can't even justify their own bonuses, what chance have we got? Does anybody manage using carrots instead of sticks anymore?
• CNBC: Herb Greenberg: IBM simply disclosed too much. Excerpts: In the past, I've questioned IBM execs about the wisdom of such a long-term target, and they proudly showed off their colorful charts and graphs on how they expected to get there. This much would come from share buybacks. This much from a catch-all known as "operating leverage," a.k.a. layoffs. And this much from future acquisitions.

  It looked good on paper but ... it's one thing for a company to have an internal long-term plan; it's another to lay it out for investors, down to the penny.

  In all of my years of doing this, I never quite understood why or how any company could claim to see that far out. Now we know—they can't.

• I, Cringely: IBM sells Intel server business, company is doomed. By Robert Cringely. Excerpts: IBM today sold its Intel server business to Lenovo, yet another example of Big Blue eating its seed corn, effectively dooming the company for the sake of short-term earnings. It’s a good move for Lenovo and an act of desperation for IBM.

  Wall Street analysts may see this as a good move but then Wall Street analysts typically aren’t that smart. They’ll characterize it as selling-off a low-margin server business (Intel-based servers) to concentrate on a higher-margin server business (Z-series and P-series big iron) but the truth is IBM has sold the future to invest in the past. Little servers are the future of big computing. IBM needs to be a major supplier and a major player in this emerging market.

  If you look at the technology used today by Google, Yahoo, and Amazon and many others you’ll see it is possible to operate a large enterprise on huge arrays of inexpensive Intel servers. For a fraction of the cost of an IBM z-Series (mainframe) or p-Series (mid-range UNIX) system, the equivalent compute power can be assembled from a modest number of low cost servers and the new software tools. IBM turned its back on this truth today by selling the Intel server business.

  Maybe this wouldn’t matter if IBM was selling a lot of those higher-margin Z- and P-series machines, but from the look of their latest earnings statement I don’t think that’s the case. So they are selling a lower-margin business where customer are actually buying to invest in a higher-margin business where customers aren’t buying. Yeah, right.

  Selected reader comments follow:

  • Metalman January 23, 2014 at 4:30 pm. Meanwhile, HP and Dell are popping open champagne. Well, Lenovo has proven to be a good competitor to those two, so it’s not all roses, but IBM is making a huge bet on a services team that hasn’t been keeping customers very happy. I can’t see this ending well for IBM; it’s like watching the end of Pan-Am.
  • Lack-of-Services January 24, 2014 at 8:05 am - Agree with Metalman completely. I spent 25 years in IBM Global Services and watched the bean-counters gut the technical talent without mercy in the name of offshored low-skill ultra-cheap labor. The technical talent in the Services unit became laughable at best, completely sad at worst. Having been fortunate enough to learn good technical skills OUTSIDE of IBM prior to my 25 years, I saw the pathetic writing on the wall and dumped a 2-week notice on them with little fanfare. Best move I ever made.

    Now the lawsuits and canceled contracts you see customers bringing onto IBM (Bridgestone, State of Indiana, State of Pennsylvania, State of Texas, Disney, First Tennessee) are a real harbinger of how utterly dysfunctional Services has become.

    Remember, the ‘leaders’ of this company, and particularly Services, are all MBA types with Finance skills, not technology or vision skills, therefore they haven’t a clue as to what it takes technically to make healthy I/T happen. I was on the inside and know what went on and how things stand now and as a result, I wouldn’t outsource my data entry to IBM. If they are betting on services saving the day, they are smoking some really good stuff from Colorado! Maybe Boulder…

  • Even More Clueless January 28, 2014 at 7:22 pm. Well written ! so, it won’t surprise you to know that Ginny was running Global Business Services as a losing proposition long before she got promoted to the top. I wouldn’t trust her to run any enterprise, not even a public toilet. It speaks volumes about what the IBM Board is doing and how the members of the board justify holding that particular office.
  • Metalman January 24, 2014 at 2:55 am. Bob has his reasons, I’m sure. But from my perspective, IBM has been a tech bellwether: a company that leads the IT industry. The thing is, most pundits and/or stock pickers only listen to the people at the top, and Bob has made a living of talking/listening to the grunts. The grunts will readily tell Bob the real story, not what’s whitewashed by the talking heads. By disseminating what is really going on in Big Blue, there’s a chance that maybe the direction of the company will change. Not much of one, but the chance is there.
  • Arturo January 24, 2014 at 8:43 am. Somebody give IBM a copy of “Innovators Dilemma.” IBM is US Steel and Lenovo is the mini mills. Lenovo has been able to be profitable in the commodity space and are moving up the chain. Not to long from now, there will be a Lenovo IT Consultant group for high end enterprise needs.
  • Charles Moorehead January 26, 2014 at 3:13 pm. I’ve always thought that the priorities for any business firm was to: 1. Get customers. 2. Satisfy customers. 3. Make a profit. You will notice that making the stockholders happy, paying big bonuses to the officers, and screwing the employees is not on this list. Therefore, I think that IBM has their priorities all messed up.
  • Billy Bluewash January 26, 2014 at 10:19 pm. I spent most of the last decade and a half inside STG at IBM. Was recruited to come to IBM and spent a lot of time marveling or more accurately “mystified” at the way things were done. Countless acquisitions were made in the time that I spent there and everyone had to go through the “BlueWash”. The equivalent is running through an endless double line of management equipped with whiffle bats who’s sole responsibility was to beat them about the head repeatedly until they finally relented to “the way we do it here”.

    Everyone that I spoke with was initially happy to be acquired by a “giant” in the industry, but that soon changed. Each member was offered substantial compensation to stay and insure success, on the average of 2 years. At the end of the 2 year period, most if not all were so shell shocked and numb for the aforementioned “whiffle bat” experience that they couldn’t wait to run for the doors. If you don’t believe me, ask the folks in Canada about their Cognos experience.

    All the Wall Street experts exclaim the accomplishments of such a legendary bellwether, but the view from inside is decidedly different. My viewpoint was the company is run by accountants and spreadsheet jockeys, neither of which have any idea of business acumen besides what appears on a spreadsheet.

    In previous companies, if one were to achieve success with a product, every effort was made to improve that product and make it more successful. Not quite the IBM way. Once a product proved to be successful, the model seems to be, “how can we make this more profitable?” So the first thing that happens is they cut the budget…say 10-15% and raise the sales projections by similar amounts. If that product were to achieve those goals, despite the odds, they again, would reduce the budget by similar amounts and raise the goals a like amount.

    Several products, Websphere, DS8000, BladeCenter and SVC were able to achieve “success” in this manner, yet, despite the success, the yearly “Fall Plan” (which is a whole another story into itself) saw a constant decline in the resources for each of these products.

    The end result was feature/functions became fewer and farther between, support resources became much more constrained and customer satisfaction continued to reduce at about the same rate as the resources. It was amazing to hear executive discussions wondering why customer satisfaction was diminishing. To those of us in the trenches, it was pretty clear...duhhh.

    IBM never outright kills a product, they just continue cutting resources until it reaches a point where sales revenue approaches the amount they are spending on it. Then it either dies or they sell it off like they did with the printer business (once legendary), the hard drive business or the laptops, of which Lenovo was able to not only revive but turn around quickly and become dominant in the industry. I suspect they will have similar success with the x86/Blade/PureFlex business.

    IBM has had some tremendous people, the guy who invented the 3 finger salute Cntl+Alt+Del (sadly passed away last year), a team that invented the supermarket bar code scanner, the team that designed the system for BART, the fathers of the ATM, the original x86 PC, and a guy that when I first joined was dragging atoms around to construct the first atom transistor while we were worried about whether a Qlogic HBA was as compatible as the Emulex HBA. Yet, these resources are constantly being devalued as more and more responsibility is shifted to college hires across the globe. These are typically smart kids, but there is an old saying “Experience is so valuable because you can’t buy it”.

    I don’t agree with the pundits that say IBM will die, but also believe that there are more hard times ahead then there are good times. Times are a changing and while “playing it safe” has ensured stability for more than 100 years, that strategy will not serve well for the coming changes in technology. Dreams of cloud computing and the ability to compete with the Amazon’s and Google’s of today have left this bellwether a long ways behind the 8 ball. Have since moved on to other opportunities and while I love my former colleagues, I fear for their safety, Apollo is but the next great adventure for them and thankfully I will not be a part of that exercise.

  • CJones January 27, 2014 at 8:02 am, Very well said. I spent 30 years there and the last 10 were very painful. The PE roadmap strategy, and Ginni downloading the PWC virus set the course for the culture of slash, burn and focus only on “what is in it for me”.
  • Barney Fyfe January 27, 2014 at 9:30 am. I retired of my own volition on December 31, 2013. The last 5 years saw a dramatic shift in IBM business with executives micro managing all the way down to the hourly employee. They are out of control. They do not want to hear from the troops. The troops that bring forward customer experience, comments, displeasure. Execs simply don’t believe that we know what we are talking about. Just get in the boat and row. They are simply hell bent on forcing customers to like what they offer. Period. This business model is doomed to fail as demonstrated with lawsuits. I am sure more will be coming.

    PureFlex or Pure Systems. What a dumb name. Sounds like a water filtration system for your home. Remember what happened to Coke when they changed their formula? And CLOUD? My personal opinion is that cloud is a security disaster waiting to happen. Who is going to control security in the “cloud”.

    Oh, BTW, HR and the bean counters are running the company.

  • Bill Costa January 28, 2014 at 10:40 am. Someday some third-tier Asian company will buy-out IBM just for the name.
  • steve February 3, 2014 at 8:30 am - Reply I used to work at IBM on one of their middleware performance teams. We would test and improve the performance of our software product across all the enterprise server platforms (P-Series, i-Series, z-Series, and x-Series from IBM in addition to Solaris/Sparc and HP-UX servers). So I can definitely say that selling off the low end (xSeries) to focus on the high end (P and Z) makes a lot of sense, if IBM had a time machine and could travel back to 2004 when the P5 came out.

    The Power 5 servers were amazing compared to their competition. Our software benchmarks were designed to stress the Application Server, not the Database server, so a smaller database could support a much larger App Server, or so we thought. The P5s were so fast that our 4 core Intel Database machines couldn’t keep up with our 4 core P5 boxes. The only machine we had that was fast enough to run the Database tier for a P5 app server was another P5 box. Add to this a seeming insurmountable lead in LPAR and Virtualization technology, and a superior profit margin, and one could easily make a case for selling off X to preserve the dominance of the Power technology platform, which backs all of IBMs servers (P, I, and Z).

    But as I said, that was 2004. Then Sam went to work turning IBM into a holding company that he and other top execs could loot. First wages were basically frozen because we never made our internal goals no matter how much we beat Wall Street. Then we stopped getting co-ops and college new hires. Soon we had a yearly layoff, then bi-yearly, then quarterly. Product development and R&D budgets plummeted, squeezing the most profit out of our current products, at the expense of the next generation.

    By the time I left the team in 2008, Intel had pretty much caught up core for core with Power; now it’s not even close. Intel has the fastest server processors on the planet. Everyone else is years behind given the current levels of investment. So while it’s good that IBM finally got out of the commodity server business, it’s really really bad that they did it 10 years too late. It also begs the question, how to they expect to compete in the cloud business, if they don’t understand how to make commodity infrastructure profitable?

• Glassdoor IBM reviews. Selected reviews follow:
  • “Day in the life of a sales person” Anonymous Employee (Current Employee). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 5 years. Pros: IBM name and reputation, product quality, highly talented development team. Cons: High rate of organizational churn, internal processes are arduous. Advice to Senior Management: STOP THE MADNESS. The churn is impossible for the employees and the customers to manage. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Once a great company, now fixated on EPS and executive bonuses” Managing Consultant (Current Employee), Chicago, IL. I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: IBM still has many great skills and talents, particularly in the Research division. The Watson technology certainly proved that point in winning the Jeopardy challenge. Cons: Crushing workloads brought on my constant "do more with less" from execs; no raises for years; managers only looking out for themselves; inability for employees to ever attend conferences to maintain skills; lack of reimbursement for cable line for work at home employees—such petty expenses that "your father's IBM" would ever have dreamed of. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend.
  • “Victim blaming” Anonymous Employee (Current Employee). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 5 years. Pros: Health care coverage was good while an active employee. Cons: Constant micro-management from executives. Too many executives listed in "report tree" that had little or nothing to do with work done by team. Previous CEO promised more jobs in US, then promptly laid off thousands. No raises for "average" employees, which reduces morale of teams filled with high performers (so bell-curve results made some look "average"). Advice to Senior Management: Reduce number of executives and use that savings to hire people that actually contribute concrete results to the company. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Falling smarter” Financial Analyst (Current Employee), Somers, NY. I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Talented smart people. Loyal peers in face of a company that has not reciprocated.

    Cons: Few opportunities for advancement in North America. Executives are tone deaf. Limited staff to support clients. Morale horrible. Using outmoded stacked ranking.

    Advice to Senior Management: This advice is really to SVPs since low-level exec and line management do not really have any leadership impact and merely are in react mode to save their own jobs. Stop the short term looting of a once great company and invest in the long term focus on customers and employees as an asset instead of liabilities. This may mean actually leading the company and forgoing personal wealth targets. Any company that predicts EPS 5 years in the future is intoxicated on its own current performance and is just seeking to become an investment tool—not a company. Stop buying back shares to buoy the price and taking profits from your own stock awards, RSUs and bonuses. On demand, smarter planet, big data, watson—stop with phrases and start creating something of value!

  • “Rudderless Ship” Anonymous Employee (Current Employee). I have been working at IBM for more than 10 years. Pros: Long company history of innovation. Cons: Lack of concern or interest in employees. Advice to Senior Management: Care about your people instead of yourselves. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Buying all competition cannot make a market leader.” Staff Software Engineer (Current Employee), Bangalore (India). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 3 years. Pros: Technology exposure; work life balance. Cons: No method to madness of software, short sighted software development in some areas. Buying all competition to survive. Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Teamwork mattered the most.” Business Controls Advisor (Former Employee), Somers, NY. I worked at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Great work atmosphere and wonderful team environment. Great salary. Great employee benefits. The ability to work from home at any time. Cons: There really weren't any downsides to working at IBM. There was great flexibility on work locations, they paid very good salaries and the paid time off was very good and based on your years of service. Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend.
  • “Horrible Place” Sales (Former Employee) Dublin (Ireland). Pros: Salary, training, safety of job. Cons: Unreal targets, politics, lots of parasites. Advice to Senior Management: The whole management should be sacked. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Layers of politics and managers covering very deficient products” Software Engineer (Former Employee), Buenos Aires (Argentina). I worked at IBM part-time for more than a year. Pros: It looks good in your CV. Decent work life balance and relaxed environment. Very low expectations overall. Cons: It is a monster company and sometimes it looks like it is out of control. Products and services are generally outdated and their features overlap resulting in huge inefficiencies. Nobody can be bothered to care about that—there is pressure to work on your small-picture area, and it would be useless anyway since the scale of the technical field has grown way beyond tractability. Also, hordes of managers not really adding much value. Advice to Senior Management: Where do I even start... No, I would not recommend this company to a friend.
  • “IBM Innovation?” Anonymous Employee (Current Employee). Pros: IBM offers a lot of innovation like Watson and advancements in future technologies (i.e. Nano). Cons: There is little innovation available in IBM services. We are very locked down to sell only what IBM creates or what its approved partners offer which makes for a very repetitive, production line feel to the job. There very few opportunities to develop innovative, outside-the-box solutions. I can only use what IBM and its approved partners offer even though there are other suppliers with more innovative offerings that I could use in the past. With all of the layoffs over the past year, I find a lot of low motivated employees with little creativity that tend to focus on how far away they are from retiring. Advice to Senior Management: You tend to spend more time focused on IBM investors and how the company looks in the market than really understanding how the company is functioning and the impact on the employees and their output. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Tivoli SME, team leader” Tivoli SME, Team Leader (Current Employee), São Paulo, São Paulo (Brazil). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 5 years. Pros: Multi-cultural company, you will work with people around the world, flexibility company (home office, flexible shift). Cons: This company seems to always be cutting expenses and laying off good employees. It's hard to believe that they will continue to load off some regions to send to low cost regions (OK it is low cost, but what else? They don't have any skills set, never will get the job done, will always cause troubles). Seems that IBM is always thinking in costs and leaving the quality. Really sad!!! Advice to Senior Management: Start to take care of the employees. There are really good people leaving the company or being lay off. Start to think in quality instead of just transition to low cost region. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “GOOD” Systems Analyst (Current Employee), London, England (UK). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than a year. Pros: Great place to work. Great benefits. Co-workers are genuinely nice people. Much less political wrangling than I've experienced at some other places where I've worked. Lots of great new products and content. It is an exciting place to work and they value their employees. Cons: It is an American company, so if you work in EMEA, it is sometimes challenging to keep track of the latest developments that are happening in the US. This issue is not really specific to IBM, but is a basic challenge when working in the UK for an international company that is head-quartered in the USA.
  • “Started out strong, but declining fast” Program Manager (Current Employee), Burlington, VT. I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Work/life balance and they still have some of the smartest people in the industry. Projects are challenging and it's great to work on problems that have never been solved before. Cons: "Respect for every IBMer" is a corporate value that is not practiced by the executives. Stock price is everything lately, and layoffs are both common and very poorly handled. Advice to Senior Management: Forget the 2015 EPS target—you're sacrificing the company to that false god. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend.
  • “Beware the Peter principle!” Product Sales Specialist (Former Employee), Edinburgh, Scotland (UK). I worked at IBM full-time for more than 8 years. Pros: Well paid. International travel options. Camaraderie with (same level) colleagues. Terrific technical innovators. Good Senior Management (and by that I mean the Board in the U.S.—not the Country/regional management 'yes' men). Cons: Highly political working environment. Managers more interested in their next move than you (or the job at hand for that matter). No management training (other than 'how not to get IBM sued'). A need, not only to play the game, but to be SEEN to play the game. You ARE a number (P.S. mine was 16882 if you're interested). Advice to Senior Management: Junior and middle managers: MANAGE your people and not JUST the business!!!! Treat your employees as people rather than 'tools'. Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend. I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “IBM Malaysia—not as it used to be... "Equal Opportunity Employer" no more.” Finance/Accounting (Current Employee), Petaling Jaya (Malaysia). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 5 years. Pros: Worked full time at IBM Bandar Utama nearing 7 years now. Work life flexibility, comfortable work place.

    Cons: Not as it used to be. Previous Director takes good care of the employees. Family days, company-employee events, subsidies (in-office beverages, medical coverage,etc) were good. New Director took most of it away and so far no Annual Day event for 2 years straight now. Probably try to hard impress the board at the expense of the employees.

    Very poor bonus-performance system. Seen good employees (company-oriented ones) receive mediocre bonus due to the reporting manager's *ahem* misjudgement (read:dislike).

    Seen lots of good employees not being promoted to supervisory/manager level despite he/she is more knowledgeable and better at decision making than the reporting managers. Also seen ridiculous employees promoted due to @$$-kissing and if you are from the light-skinned race (not being racist here, mind you).

    Highly recommend IBM to remove the tagline "Equal Opportunity Employer" as it is no longer for more than 5 years now.

    Advice to Senior Management: Have a deep look at your 1st line and 2nd line managers. Get the employees feedback on them. Do not take in 100% what the managers are saying about the employees as most of the managers are just judging based on their emotions, totally UN-PROFESSIONAL at all.

    The large number of managers from the certain light-skinned race speaks for itself.

    If you are not from the light-skinned race, do not dream to climb up the corporate ladder as you will have a hard time to get promoted due to your hard-work.

    If you are from this light-skinned race, get in, work at your pace, be promoted within the 1-2 years. Very high chances to be in supervisory role well within 1-3 years. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

  • “Business Analytics Brand Portfolio Rep” Anonymous Employee (Current Employee). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 3 years. Pros: IBM is arguably the most successful technology company, which brings instant credibility with existing and prospective customers. IBM invests in the training of its employees. Cons: Heavy administrative burden. Redundant management means extra pipelines reviews. Constant changing of territories and technologies that can be sold under Business Analytics umbrella. Commission plans are always changing. Advice to Senior Management: Care about people who are out in the field doing the job. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “I worked for Immigration Services within IBM that discriminated against qualified employees.” Immigrations Case Management (Former Employee), Durham, NC. I worked at IBM full-time for more than 5 years. Pros: Offered work from home privileges. Cons: Unrealistic goals and quotas; very limited advancement opportunities for persons of color; required excess of 45 hours a week to meet the rigors and demands of the department. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend.
  • “Good learning experience, however no promotional avenues, or opportunities to move around the company.” Software Tester (Current Employee) Dublin (Ireland). I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 5 years. Pros: Good technical learning ground. Products are overly complicated and a bit dated, so good prospects as an external consultant. Some very talented people work there. Cons: Very difficult to move around the company, or to different areas. Very one dimensional experience, after the first couple of years. In very stark contrast to other multinationals I have worked for. Advice to Senior Management: Variety is the spice of life, varied experience is essential for career growth.
  • “Used to be a great company to work for” Field Service Engineer (Current Employee), Boulder, CO. I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Job security, Advancement opportunities, can transfer to other locations. Cons: Disjointed, unorganized business. Management disassociated from ground level work. Advice to Senior Management: Information flow is critically lacking, business model for running a company is seriously flawed. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “A company with no vision” Anonymous Employee (Former Employee). I worked at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: The pros are hard to come by these days. The people you work with are hard working and professional. Cons: No vision and because of this the company is struggling. Revenue is flat lined. Salary increases are abysmal, profit sharing shrinks year after year and benefits cost more. People are clearly "resources" and "assets". Upper and senior management have no concept of respect for the individual. Work/life balance has magically morphed to work/life integration meaning your life is your work. Internal processes are extremely bureaucratic and it is a grind it out environment—day in and day out. Advice to Senior Management: Get a vision and get back to respecting your employees. I would not be at all surprised if IBM sees a significant departure of highly skilled resources over the next 24 months as people find a more employee friendly employment. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
  • “Profit at all costs company.” Senior IT Specialist (Current Employee), Charlotte, NC. I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Large market share in the outsourcing and business consulting arenas. I have been a full-time employee for 15 years as Senior IT specialist. Initially they gave us great raises, and very affordable benefits. And because of the large market share, it was easy to move to new assignments when contracts ended. But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end.

    Cons: Things started getting bad about 6 years ago. Raises for long term employees mostly disappeared. Some of my colleagues have not had a raise in 7 to 8 years. My cost for insurance for my family went from $180 per month in 2004 to $724 per month in 2013, 289% increase. If you are IBM US your days are numbered. A few years ago IBM implemented its plan to reduce US employee head count by 60%. Moving everything to IBM India. I believe they are in year 3 of the 5 year plan. They can get 2 to 3 employees in India, with little to no experience, for the price of one US employee that had many years of experience. And the work product delivered shows a drastic decline. At one point I actually had to tell an offshore resource who had not added error trapping/handling to a project "because the customer did not ask for it" that it is up to us as professional developers to add it because it is part of industry best practices. Every year when they announce the resource actions (sometimes 2 per year) I hold my breath. I know my days are numbered, because I have 15 years now. Maybe I can get one more year.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Advice to Senior Management: Ms. "Ginni" Rometty needs to change this trend of getting the cheap labor from offshore, or the already diminishing IBM image will crash completely and she and all of the executive board members will be in the job hunt. Of course they will all have a nice multi-million dollar severance package, while the displaced employees will get the 2 weeks salary for every 6 months worked severance ( up to 26 week max). No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.

  • “It's not your father's Oldsmobile.” Advisory Engineer (Former Employee), Essex Junction, VT. I worked at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Company sites in small cities; usually pay more than other employers in the area. Cons: Career opportunities for just a few 'golden' employees. Work life balance exists as long as your definition of that is you work as many hours as it takes. Advice to Senior Management: Stop telling execs what they want to hear, and tell the truth.
  • “IBM is not anything at all like it used to be.” Advisory Software Engineer (Former Employee), Research Triangle Park, NC. I worked at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: IBM has lots of very talented and hard working people. There is a wealth of technical knowledge within the company.

    Cons: IBM seems to be focused solely on the bottom line. The company no longer seems interested in maintaining a competitive advantage through technical innovation or by attracting and retaining top technical talent. IBM is bleeding away talented people through resource actions (aka layoffs) and people leaving on their own initiative. The remaining people are expected to carry the ever growing workload with fewer resources after losing strong experienced people. Also, the periodic layoffs strip away any sense of job security.

    Advice to Senior Management: Stop focusing on the bottom line. Make it a priority to attract and retain top technical talent. Use technical excellence and innovation to create and keep a competitive edge. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.

  • “IBM employees in the USA especially in System and Technology Group” Senior Engineer (Current Employee), Poughkeepsie, NY. I have been working at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: Flexible hours; working with latest technology on the highest end server design. Cons: IBM server and storage is no longer growing especially in the USA. Jobs has been outsourced and there is little or no chance for advancement.
  • “IBM --> Idiots Become Managers” Anonymous Employee (Current Employee), Wrocław (Poland). Pros: Good company name to have on resume. Space to grow in terms of career available trainings online. Cons: Inexperienced young kids leading the departments; no leadership; no people management, everything done on last minute without proper planning. Advice to Senior Management: Don't promote people to first line manager without experience inside IBM. Think twice to promote young people. Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend.
  • “Big, slow, top heavy with management.” Software Engineer (Former Employee). I worked at IBM full-time for more than 10 years. Pros: A degree of flexibility as to working location and hours. Some truly incredible and talented people. Cons: Too much process; managers that are scared to make a decision; execs that only care about the bottom line and their bonuses; slow as molasses. Big words, big visions but not backed up by any real execution. Advice to Senior Management: No advice; you wouldn't listen when I was there, you won't now. No, I would not recommend this company to a friend. I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company.
• Glassdoor IBM Canada reviews

• Alliance for Retired Americans Friday Alert. This week's topics include:
  • Supreme Court Hears Landmark Union Case Involving Home Health Care Workers
  • Last Chance to RSVP for Conference Call with Sen. Bernie Sanders Monday Night
  • Insurance Industry Ads Seek to Preempt Medicare Advantage Cuts
  • Scam Using Medical Alert Devices was Aimed at Seniors
  • Hawaii Alliance for Retired Americans Holds its Convention, Elects Officers
  • Obituary: Kenny Stevens, Member of Alliance Executive and Regional Boards
  • Obituary for former Vermont Alliance President Chet Briggs