Not sure about all other divisions or departments, but earlier this week areas in IBM Systems just officially had freezes put on:
Travel, unless client-related,
Capex, and
Hire tickets.
One could interpret these indicators as forecasting some bad news for September. . .
Fjs. I believe the Mainframe slow down is and was expected. The sales cycle for Mainframe tends to run hot (customers wanting new technology) for the first 4-5 quarters after a new announcement of technology, then return to BAU (customers needing processing capacity) for the next 8-10 quarters. At the end of that time frame, new technology is introduced, and we repeat the cycle. Z14 was announced last July (2017) with Sales starting end of sept 2017, so we are rounding the corner on the “hot” part of the Sales market place, and now will be entering the replacement/needing capacity part of the sales cycle. This means HW Sales will level off or shrink back to approx a billion a quarter. NET NET, IBM will have to grow another division or strategic initiative to make up for the leveling off. Otherwise they will have to sell something off (power, DASD, or services), or IP something off (essentially the older longer in the tooth legacy stuff, (Eg AIX, OS/400, Power, or DASD)) or save their way to earnings expectations via head count reductions (layoffs)
With all due respect to the OP some orgs have had these things frozen for many years. I don't think there is anything new here.
More interesting is the CFO saying layoffs were needed to offset a mainframe slowdown. Does he mean returning to normal after a one-time-only good quarter?
The CFO announced the slow down of the Mainframe cycle on the 1st and 2nd q earnings calls. He stated that 1st q layoffs were engaged to partly offset the slow down and to offset a higher tax rate. He also said that he expected 2nd half savings from layoffs to help offset the slow down. If the Mainframe slows down more than anticipated expect further layoffs or a sell off of DASD or Power to muddy the water for that sector, and give IBM an excuse
Yes, that would mean the 3Q results are struggling... most likely the mainframe cycle is done and nothing else is growing to compensate for the mainframe past 2-3 quarters good results.
No surprise though... we all knew it was coming!