Slashdot Mirror
Cringely Predicts IBM Will Shed 78% of US Employees By 2015
Third Position writes "Cringely with more predictions about IBM: 'The direct impetus for this column is IBM's internal plan to grow earnings-per-share (EPS) to $20 by 2015. The primary method for accomplishing this feat, according to the plan, will be by reducing U.S. employee head count by 78 percent in that time frame.' So far, Cringely's pronouncements about IBM have been approximately true, even if he missed the exact numbers and timeframes. Is he right this time?"
If Cringley's numbers are approximately correct, I don't think IBM can get to a 78% reduction in 3 years using their current strategy of staying below the reporting requirements for layoffs.
This is just one of a series of articles he's releasing this week. Two of them are currently available on his site.
The Cringely prediction cited as being "approximately true" (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070504_002027.html) was nothing of the sort. Cringely predicted IBM would imminently lay off 150,000 employees. That was five years. Didn't happen.
cognos is the worst piece of crap software i've had the pleasure of working with. it's a huge pain in the a$$ to install, you have to make dozens of changes that isn't in the documentation and only available by calling support. even then they tell you to google stuff because the IBM support site is a mess to navigate
and after you buy the software you find out features are missing because you didn't buy the right version. there are like 20 different versions of Cognos with different features
SQL Server may not be 100% as good, but at least it's pretty easy to set it up and get going for the 90% of the features you will use
Actually, the US lags behind other Western democracies in the things you enumerate as being overly costly.
So those that the system has entrusted with overseeing our business and industry sends our jobs to second and third world nations - and they reap huge bonuses for doing so, and thereby, destroying our economy and nation.
Check your premises.
Other countries don't (yet) have these, so their cost is lower.
They don't? Obviously you don't work in Europe. In the socialist leaning countries, these rules do not get much press because they are no big deal. In the US, laws to ensure equal protection are treated by some (like yourself) as the cause to end civilization. How dare women demand to be paid the same money as men for doing the same job? Don't they know exploitation is a God-given right in this country?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I provide developer support on an SDK... I can tell you one thing - every horror story anyone ever told about complete lack of quality, skill, ability, and in many cases: common sense with regard to outsourced Chinese and Indian development is more likely true than not.
Outsourced to Russia? well, they may steal your IP and put it in someone else's product (even your competitors if they're hired by them) but at least there's a culture of curiosity and figuring things out. I've worked with some pretty smart Chinese and Indian H1B folks and Naturalized US Citizens (similarly, some smart ones living /working in other first-world countries), but the ones who don't have the ambition/drive to get the hell out of their third world nations and seriously underbid and over promise? yeah... you seriously get what you're paying for there. Good effing luck. Ask Dell how that call center worked out.
When I started with IBM in 1999 they had ~220k US employees. At the beginning of 2009 they had ~115K. That year they had two rounds of lay offs that included ~5K per round. IBM stopped publishing the number of US employees after that for some reason.
- I got hit in that second round
It's called a death spiral. It's something that happens to a lot of companies actually where they start jetsoning their "underperforming" business lines but not realizing that the underperforming business lines are covering some of the fixed costs of the "good" business lines. Once those costs are re-allocated to the "good" lines, they are not underperforming and need to be jetsoned off. Eventually there is nothing left in the organization that can cover the fixed costs and it goes under.
It's one of the things they teach you to watch out for in business school. Why it keeps happening over and over and over again, I have no idea.
That would attract businesses by the droves I'd think...so, no loopholes, no corporate taxes
Except they're doing just fine with 0% US taxes by keeping the money all offshore with their employees. Why should they bring that money back into the country to hire more expensive employees that are going to demand enough pay to buy a house for their family instead of living 20 to a dirt hut or sleeping in a company cot in the barracks?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Boomers? No. Financial theorists of the late 1970's/early 1980's? Yes. That's roughly when the concept of "maximizing shareholder value" started to get taught in business school. (I was there, I know. Big name east coast B school - it was on all my professors' lips.)
It was BS then, it's BS now - it misses the basic fact that a corporation has three constituencies, not one - customers, employees, and yes, shareholders. Take care of the first two, and the third will do just fine, thank you very much. Pay your employees what they are worth, give your customers what they pay for, focus on delivery and not empty marketing, and the value of your business (and hence your shareholders' worth) will grow accordingly.
It takes thinking past this quarter's results. Under pressure from investors and analysts, that's hard to do - so hard, I think just about the single worst thing a successful company can do is go public. (Looking at you, Facebook...)
The article is about slashing 78% of US employees at IBM. That's not a sign of a healthy company.
They'll be replaced immediately by employees from India and China.
When I was in China I applied to IBM for data warehouse consulting and got to a third round interview. The hiring manager told me the salary, which was about $1,000USD/month (a pretty good rate in China) but they would send me to the US to work. I pointed out that was below the US minimum wage and she said never mind that because they would send me on a 'Z' visa which is good for up to two years with no salary restrictions. When I then objected I couldn't be sent to the US on any kind of visa as a US citizen, she immediately hung up. I tried to call and email to follow up but couldn't get any response.
So, don't worry about IBM's profitability after they get rid of those pesky US workers and their outrageous salary demands. The going rate on an IBM data warehouse consulting is measured by $hundreds/hour and it's almost all markup straight to the company.
Write to your congresscritter and demand something be done about Z visas.
Sorry, it was the L visa: inter-company transfer.
The other big problem with outsourcing to India is finding the competent Indians. It's much easier to find competent people if you can interview them in person than if they are a few hours away on a fast aeroplane. Unless you have a large corporate presence in India already, you're likely to get the people who couldn't get a job somewhere that does competent screening, even if you are paying above market rates. Add to that, the competent ones are not stupid: they quickly learn that they can consult one or two days a month charging close to western rates and live very comfortably...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"Racism much? I bet your sweeping generalizations of other cultures takes you very far in life."
It's called inductive reasoning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning
"Hume highlighted the fact that our every day habits of mind depend on drawing uncertain conclusions from our relatively limited experiences..."
There's nothing wrong with making generalizations based on the data set to which you've been exposed. I think it goes without saying that the comment is based on personal experience as opposed to a comprehensive study.
The evolutionary nature of this type of thought process is obvious. People that didn't figure out that certain plants and animals will kill you after they'd made a few observations were weeded out of the gene pool.