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?"

Comments

Absurd

[jbrodkin]

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.

please start with the Cognos people

[alen]

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

Re:please start with the Cognos people

[timestride]

Amen-- Cognos is a mess. The thing I hate the most is that their support staff only know certain aspects of the suite. If you have an issue with Cognos Planning, but you are accidently routed to someone in the Cognos Business Intelligence support group, they have to reroute your case and you'll be waiting at least several hours before they call you back. Heaven forbid you have an issue with integration between the two suites.

Re:Brilliant!

[jmauro]

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.

Re:What decline?

[magarity]

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.