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."

12 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Re:First post??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Prison rape isn't funny.

  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
  3. "Workforce rebalance" by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anytime such grandiose outsourcing and/or workforce cutting schemes are created, you can suspect that a psychopathic suit just got an idea how to look busy and useful.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  4. Re:First post??? by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No what's funny is that a nation which is already joking about his prison rape before he's even been found guilty runs around the world trying to impose their view of human rights on everyone else.

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

    1. Re:He's not a fucking troll by QuoteMstr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're coasting on the accomplishments of our ancestors. Unfortunately, their America is not our America.

  8. Re:First post??? by tunapez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's so textbook corporate psychopathy. When will people learn?

    After they're caught.
    At which time they will wax sympathetic, not admit any guilt and promise not to do it again.
    All the while crossing their toes.

    When a culture celebrates and rewards parasitic behavior, it's no wonder the psycho's are winning.
    ***How much time will the billionaire serve do you suppose? I predict he "affords" his justice and walks. Worst case, no admission of wrongdoing and 18 months of "hard" club-fed time for perjury or jaywalking.

    --
    Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
  9. No, it's definitely NOT capitalism. by boorack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As a person who still remembers (late stages of) communism, those fat & lazy corporations resemble old (long dead) industry in communist states. So many things look exactly the same. High rank executives chasing phantom "results" just to get their bonuses, causing so much mayhem in the process. Middle rank managers who are interested in just blindly executing orders from their bosses and have to be clueless crooks to succeed, low level worker drones interested in setting up another "Q&A cell" to do some paperwork or being a salesman without any responsibility instead of doing something real.

    For me, the main distinction between capitalism and communism (corporatism) is ownership. In capitalism the owner runs the business and risks its own property in the process - thus the owner is interested in well-being in the long run. In communism (or corporatism) the communist comisar (corporate executive) runs business that does not belong to him, does not risk anything and is interested in skimming some of it via bonus (for posting cooked results) or some form of fraud.

    Using ownership distinction it is easy to explain why some corporations (Google, even Microsoft) are doing well (and have clean vision) while others (pre-Gerstner IBM, HP after Compaq merge) have no vision except next quarter results. Apple is a blatant example - founded by Jobs & co, then taken over by some classic corporate drones (and nearly killed in the process), then taken back by Jobs and regained all its shine (and some more). This also explains why large corporations like to merge creating larger (more poorly managed) ones - the larger (and less transparent), the more occasions for upper management to steal something.