Thread regarding IBM layoffs

Perhaps the people who are comfortable talking to you about this kind of thing are just all roughly in the same place in their careers? It would not be very rational to just go after the people you went out of your way to retain.

What do you think a "cloud" is but a massive mainframe DASD farm?

Well, you can make the argument that modern cloud architectures are the exact opposite -- commodity, open, distributed systems.

1qoz. You are exactly correct. Given the legacy SW that has been developed for Z over the last 40 years (the estimates are something like a trillion) it makes sense that IBM embrace Z into the cloud. Notice all Power references have moved to HCP and AI. Nothing more. Like I said IBM in the developed world wants to go down by 80%. Because you know this stuff just sells itself. ALSO here is one more little tidbit. IBM doesn’t really develop anything any more. They buy it, and squeeze the life out of it. We are still investing in new technology, but it’s split between India and the USA now vs exclusively USA (like it was 10 years ago). So the real focus is to watch what the investments are. In the USA over the last 5 years it’s been in hard assets like datacenters. In IBM India it’s been in reasearchers. Again you can see where the company is heading. (Eg go to where they can buy a cog for cheap). Ginni has made her bet, and it’s invest where you can get it for cheap. She has back filled this bet with a “we’ll cover up the Fortune 250 with additional heads”. It’s not a bad strategy, but played out, it means IBM is going to shrink

Z has been "near death" for 20 years. What do you think a "cloud" is but a massive mainframe DASD farm?

Folks. Pay attention. The new IBM CFO made his plans plain on the earnings call. These are his words. The Z mainframe cycle is coming to an end, as it has run it’s course, and we expect headwinds as the year continues. IBM took a 610 million charge to make their numbers in 1st Q. The head winds mean “expect” more resource actions. The CFO made no bones about it to the investment house folks. They asked how will you make your 13.80 per share for 2018. He said resource actions and skills remix. No other answers. As such expect resource actions to make up for these head winds. So now take a peek at IBM America’s, and IBM Europe, and you can see where you fit in

Services. They have already announced a 20 % (onshore), a 20% near shore, and a 60% off shore plan. EG services are going to shrink a LOT at the expense of IBM India.

SWG, outsourcing, and erp management. Ibm has been growing cloud services at your expense. Expect far more of the same as it’s been highly successful

HW. Ibm has sold off PC, and low end servers. AIX is being replaced at warp speed via LINUX where IBM has little add on SW to engage vs Intel. Z has run it’s cycle and IBM has said it’s drying up, Power brand has been abandoned to the channel except for P9 HPC. IBM has already announced a plan of harvesting legacy via IP sales which are also drying up (listen to the pod cast)

Sales. IBM has already announced a worldwide fortune 250 strategy. (think mainframe). If that is not your skill set, you are most likely in the cross hairs

Technical support. If you can read a script which they can do in India, bandwidth is cheap.

NET NET IBM wants to shrink 80% in first world countries as they are too expensive and it’s a race to the bottom.

IBM doesn’t care if customers complain. They never promised gold plated service and have shown their hands. No customer satisfaction surveys, no employee surveys, no EI’s. Why??? They know people are pissed, and don’t care. The orders were if costs can be lowered, replace that cog. IBM employees are just viewed as replaceable cogs.

First world employees. This is the game plan that the 3000 IBM exec’s have been tasked with.

GAME OVER until a new Exec suite team comes in

Promote yourself... look elsewhere...

Not in line for a promo, but got good ratings for 3 years and got RA'd yesterday, total surprise, gone in 90 days. Bad times ahead for IBM.

They could promote you without a raise and never give you a raise afterwards.