Not sure how many people here care, but there were significant layoffs at IBM Singapore last week. Looks like Mexico is cheaper than Singapore, since jobs are being transferred there.
https://www.nst.com.my/world/2018/07/393383/ibm-singapore-lays-workers-tampines-plant
I’m speculating here that IBM is in the process of selling the manufacturing side of Power and Storage. That would mean that the channel organization for DASD and Power would also be spun off. I believe that IBM would keep Z as there is very little channel involvement NET NET I would guess a USA manufacturer would strike an IP deal with IBM to manufacture the POWER and DASD boxes with IBM guranteeing to purchase their Cloud infrastructure needs for a period of time going forward. The question is who would buy the manufacturing piece and why. HPE certainly needs a Unix replacement box for their big servers, and Cisco has always loved the storage component of IBM. IBM doesn’t want to be in the HW manf business anymore, and this would be a way to get some IP value without sacrificing/competing with the strategic initiatives. It also allows IBM to lower their marketing costs to almost zero for their non-fortune 250 customers
IBM opened the plant in 2010 for S$90-million, and they are already abandoning it. Not good planning!
@zhk - agreed 100%
I would say something else is in the works
Something else is driving this? Power play? Shifting P&Ls? Tax?
So do the math here. It’s cheaper to continue to do System Z assembly here in Singapore (say 1000 Z Systems per quarter. That is a guess). BUT it’s cheaper to move to Mexico and do assembly of Power Systems (say 25,000 Systems per quarter again just a guess but certainly Power far exceeds Z in Systems if you factor in scale out and scale up boxes including the LINUX boxes in the total) I would say the math does not support that argument OR power Systems has fallen off a cliff in Asia. Either way, shipping costs for approx 1/2 of all Power Systems to travel back around the world from Mexico has got to exceed the 200 temp workers manufacturing costs. I would say something else is in the works