Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Arrested IBM Exec Goes MIA On the Web

Posted by kdawson on from the never-heard-of-him dept.

theodp writes "Among those charged in the largest hedge-fund insider trading case in US history was IBM Sr. VP Robert W. Moffat, the heir apparent to IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and the guy behind Big Blue's 'workforce rebalancing' and the sale of IBM's PC unit to Lenovo. IBM's not talking about the incident, but it's interesting that Moffat's bio is MIA at IBM.com ('Biography you tried to access does not exist.'), and his Smarter Planet video can no longer be found ('This video has been removed by the user.') at IBM's YouTube Channel. Do you need approval from the Feds before tidying up after someone who's under investigation? BTW, if stories and comments appearing in the Times Herald-Record and Poughkeepsie Journal are any indication, Moffat may want to avoid a local jury trial. 'I have talked to a few IBMers today, and there seems to be a lot of cheering in the halls of IBM over his arrest,' said Lee Conrad of Alliance@IBM."

8 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Bernie Madoff by br00tus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Before Madoff was arrested, a Google search for his name pointed to many pages at Yeshiva University, which he gave a lot of money to. If you clicked on the Google cache, there were glowing profiles about him. If you clicked on the actual pages, his name had been pulled out of all those pages almost as soon as he was arrested, because I was Googling all of this the day after he was arrested. It's still all probably on archive.org

  2. As an ex-ibm'er from the Hudson Valley... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I just want to testify to the anger towards IBM in the Hudson Valley. IBM has moved from being a socially responsible organization towards being a profit driven company. During the process a lot of people have gotten hurt. People who invested their lives working for IBM lost their pensions. They went from being a massive economic presence and benefactor to being a fading sun. If this guy was one of the reasons for the move towards a new cutthroat IBM then good riddance.

    1. Re:As an ex-ibm'er from the Hudson Valley... by coolgeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If Watson were still here, the people would be retrained into the next phase/project/product. It would cost money. Having people with such a diverse skill set would be a huge boon to innovation. Watson would see that end game and hold out for it.

      People used to know, if you got hired at IBM, you were set for life. This is how Watson attracted the best of the best. Their failure to keep their eye on the ball is a primary contributor to their current position as an irrelevant has-been.

      My friend's dad was a typewriter repairman for IBM most of his life. He had MS. When the Selectrics started disappearing in the mid-80's and as the MS started to impair him, they retrained him to work on a bench, repairing PCs. When his MS progressed to the point that the PC repair was too much for him, they gave him an office, and his one responsibility was to file a report on a monthly basis. He was not required to come to work every day. Still received full pay and benefits until he could no longer show up once a month, after he took a fall resulting in injury. He was able to leave with his pension and full benefits.

      IBM was more than a corporation, it was an institution. It is extremely sad that this institution no longer exists.

      --

      cat /dev/null >sig
    2. Re:As an ex-ibm'er from the Hudson Valley... by herojig · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In the old America, institutions like IBM were expected to provide jobs, benefits, and in general, social welfare for all in the community. There used to be a word for it (that had meaning): good corporate citizen. As someone who grew up in Poughkeepsie, I can attest to the fact that during the 50's, 60s, and 70s, IBM was a good corporate citizen. Our high school had a mainframe, and we learned to program using keypunch machines. My dad retired there, and even though he is gone, my mom is still living with the best medical benefits you can imagine, as well as a decent monthly check. Of course this is "costly and inefficient." But there was a time in America when the relationship between worker and work was not just controlled by the bottom line, but there was a more humane side to capitalism. That system no longer exists, but for those with short memories or are too young to understand, it once did. You can't change the way things were. Today, it seems there are hangers on to the old way, and those just born into the newer one, hence the rub and ill feelings in the Mod Hudson Valley. That area saw a rise in growth and prosperity based on the achievements of IBM workers, and then saw a downturn that never rose up again after IBM management changed to the likes of Robert W. Moffat. The downtown mall went from being a vibrant shopping and meeting area, to a crack house. The school system went from being one of the best, to the lowest of the low, and people fled in droves once there wasn't a good corporate citizen around to provide what they wanted. What happened in that one small river valley has happened all over America, and I fear she is now ruined beyond repair. The greed inherent in American society has finally conquered the good that was once more deeply ingrained.

      --
      I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
  3. Speaking of such.... by NoYob · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From one of TFA:

    Cost is part of the calculation, Mr. Moffat noted, but typically not the most important consideration. "People who say this is simply labor arbitrage don't get it," he said. "It's mostly about skills."

    You know, I keep hearing that, but I have yet to see any proof. And if you walk into any American CS program, you'll see plenty of American students as well as foreign ones. What I'm saying is that there are plenty of qualified US students coming out of US universities and there are plenty of qualified US citizens to do any IT job. If you find that not to be your experience, I'd like to point out a few issues your organization may have:

    1. Your HR department may be screening out folks you want.
    2. Many times, your job reqs get changed by HR and they publish something completely different from what you're looking for.
    3. You are demanding too much, and if that's the case, you still won't get it overseas - unless, they're lying about their skills.
    4. You are located somewhere that no one really wants to live. Has your local population been trending down: like in the rust belt areas?

    In other words, I am very skeptical of anyone who says they can't get qualified people - especially in this economy.

    --
    It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
    1. Re:Speaking of such.... by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's never about skills. I have worked for companies that do off-shoring. They're no better. They're the same. Some are good but some aren't. But the off-shore team was much bigger because you can get developers for less than minimum wage in this country and amazingly companies can live with loads of incompetence when labour is dirt cheap.

      It's not just about wages, it's also about labour laws and not having to give benefits like pensions. They would probably even pay uk wages to these people as long as they still get to treat them like shit.

      These people aren't dumb, they know they're being taken advantage of. The good ones are looking to move to the UK, Canada, US, etc to get their decent wage and benefits.

  4. This made my day..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Worked for 23+ years at IBM Greenock Personal Systems Manufacturing, then they sold us off to Sanmina - SCI who closed us down less than 2 years later. Always remember Moffat's speech to those being jetissoned about how we were all like his children and how you have to let go of your children if they are to grow and realise their true potential. Patronising c**t..... More like hiring Jeffrey Dahmer as a babysitter. Am organising a reunion of my old department to celebrate.

  5. He's not a fucking troll by QuoteMstr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I say this as an American: we've become barbarians. We torture people. We incarcerate more people, both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis, than any other nation in the world, and think it's okay to gang-rape 1% of our population. Our wealth is distributed like that of a banana republic. We're stupid, vapid, and like a feral child, we snarl and bite when someone tries to help us. America really is the sick man of the world, and personally, I'm about ready to give up and pronounce the disease incurable. We can argue about causes and solutions, but you can't deny that we're in a steep decline. As George Orwell write,

    We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.