In Microsoft's case, they'd probably hash it up with Powershell, Hyper-V and the System Center Suite, as they're all products that are in-house. RDP still will be the prevailing tool of the day, though.
The 100k salaries were the reasons they've outsourced the mainframe jobs to Argentina/Brazil.
They've also restructured their service delivery. They're doing what they can to control OT, but there's never enough people. They're trying to take a shot at pooling the overworked people in effort to try to get even more productivity out of them... it's rather crazy.
And yeah... the top employees still get worked hard. We've got some people that were suppose to be mid to high-grade in classification... which don't even know the products or the specific functions of the products they're dealing with.
I've heard the call-center half is dismal as well, from a friend.
IBM needs a union for it's FTEs and contractors. It's well-earned.
The contracting companies they've restricted to don't pay benefits (if they do, it's unsubsidized), and low-ball you. The budgets are dramatically slashed. Everything for a dime if they can help it. And they still want ~2000 employees across the board for the endeavor.
I can't say the days of having the 100 day break and coming back to Microsoft are still here. I've been one of those a- employees and entered my break knowing my job wasn't going to be there due to a re-org. One of my friends there at the time that went on break earlier wasn't remotely lucky about knowing that her job was going to disappear.
Saying that the 100 day break at MS is a paid vacation is based on the assumption that there will be a job for you at the end of it is a bit untrue. One gets just as stressed out and still has to hunt for a jo likely before.
It's not often that I find myself defending on feature of Microsoft, as I prefer Linux and OS X, but this is one time I think I shall.
There was a time that anything you could do on standard Windows could be done just as well on Server. That was the point of the portability of the operating system. It just is cost prohibitive thanks to the new SKU system (post Windows NT 4.0, of course) that really changed that.
As long as it still can be a drop-in (replacement) for Vista, I think I'm happy. Without all of the vacuum sucking feelings.
In regards to "Fascist Warning Sign #5: Rampant sexism," we've had feminism which probably advances where the line is drawn. How about the scapegoating of GLBT issues? It's just as bad as far as polarization goes.
I've driven many English teachers and peers nuts with that keyboard. It really does echo through a quiet classroom. Sucked, because that was the only keyboard I had availabile at the time, because someone had tossed a baseball towards me and it hit the laptop keyboard warping it.
So, I suppose that was adequate revenge.
Yeah, I'm late to reply.
I just find it odd that our skill-set hasn't even been remotely matched by the newcomers in my exact predicament, let alone the rest of the teams. You milage may very, but as far as I've seen, my assessment is correct. There's 8 of us, 2 of them, in theory there's another 6 somewhere that they're suppose to cut over to at the end of the month.
The offshoring SDM on the matter said that they were eager to be taking this account, but the reality is that, despite being directed what to do exactly so their people would be prepared, they've ignored it completely from our training, getting involved with the process currently used on the account with the customer and the very daily duties. Never mind that they're also suppose to be taking the higher level duties like sizing and media orders. The newcomers just don't give a damn and they've got excuses to match for why they're not performing. In the end, we're not the ones to be blamed for why their skillsets don't match up to the problems with the environment we use to maintain. It'll be them sitting on the call trying to evade the customer's point-blank questions for the failure.
The top-line account manager's and some of the SDM's US side are seriously freaked out about what is going to happen at the end of this month. They *are* afraid that this will cost them the account given the gross mismanagement and irresponsibility during this whole affair.
I've seen some incompetence in other teams, but it has gone up massively on my account when I've had to tell their Argentinian and Brazilian replacements how to do a few simple things like changing the NIC speed and duplex on an adapter when auto-negotiation fails and backups aren't working to how do deal with things like swap space. Reboots have gone to being a weekly and daily affair on this account. I don't think they're really in search of answers at this point.
SLAs are gonna be blown a lot more in the coming days. That's gonna be hard to downplay and I'm sure the costs to IBM might just outweigh the staff they just slashed.
Well, I understood that was a potential possibility. I was hoping to jump from full-time contractor to full-time IBmer. It didn't work out alas. It's just scary even see the 3 IBMers on the team to go right with us. The other teams UNIX and INTEL just had the same thing happen. That was 100 people right there, contractors and IBMers.
Meanwhile, in Europe, we just smile since we've said for a very long time that american IT workers are way overpaid for the crappy job they do.
Ironically, I'd have to say I'm rather talented in that I get the job done right the first time and end up overworked for it. I'm kinda envious of your vacation and labor laws. Maybe it's time for me to leave the US. Not everyone in the US is the leech you generalize us to be.;)
Actually, the jobs went to Argentina, India, China, and Brazil. The US jobs just were axed. So, IBM Global Services will continue until their contracts turn around them for failing to deliver on their SLAs (Service Level Agreements) because their workforce is potentially incompetent for when a real problem comes along. Not all of these replacements are even remotely as skilled as their US counterparts. Just cheaper.
IBM has been massively quiet on lay-offs for many years. It's just their style. It's bad for PR when it is that visible, let alone that it demoralizes the staff. IBM, through unofficial sources, has created ~70,000 jobs off seas while axeing a comparable amount (50,000) here in America. And that's before this latest round that we see today. The tracker is at http://www.techsunite.org/offshore/
It's true. I'm soon to be out of my job at the end of the month, as well as the rest of my team (IBMers and (Perma-Temp) Contractors. My account was slated for transfer to Brazil in January and the talks started before that. We were expected to train our replacements who have basically been warm bodies. They're not even particularly talented. The rest of IBM Global Services is going the same way. So this is a VERY real thing. I was hoping to get hired on this year to IBM from being a contractor and that's shot. I'm just concerned given the massive offshoring that's occurring and how much this WILL impact IT. The displacement of this many workers is still going to have quite an impact on IT.
IBM has also implemented LEAN in effort to cut their IBM'er workforce in response to offshore outsourcing, which ironically is the very thing they're doing themselves. The survivors, although being survivors might mean they sorta wished they weren't. It's seriously bad. I'd suggest not touching IBM with a 10 foot pole. They're calling this the wave of the future... if they want to turn IT into something equated as fast food. That's the dream they're going for.
The sad part about the whole thing is that I enabled this to happen. I've spent my time there since day one migrating dying backup environments from Veritas Backup Exec and ArcServe IT to TSM and the resulting clean-up work. I am massively disappointed.
Anyone need a Arcserve / Veritas / Tivoli Storage Administrator ?
Slashdot Mirror
Please hold on while I edit Wikipedia and bribe some OSHA government officials to fix those issues for you...
You know how the Premier likes surprises. He planned to announce it at the next party meeting.
In Microsoft's case, they'd probably hash it up with Powershell, Hyper-V and the System Center Suite, as they're all products that are in-house. RDP still will be the prevailing tool of the day, though.
The 100k salaries were the reasons they've outsourced the mainframe jobs to Argentina/Brazil. They've also restructured their service delivery. They're doing what they can to control OT, but there's never enough people. They're trying to take a shot at pooling the overworked people in effort to try to get even more productivity out of them... it's rather crazy. And yeah... the top employees still get worked hard. We've got some people that were suppose to be mid to high-grade in classification... which don't even know the products or the specific functions of the products they're dealing with. I've heard the call-center half is dismal as well, from a friend. IBM needs a union for it's FTEs and contractors. It's well-earned. The contracting companies they've restricted to don't pay benefits (if they do, it's unsubsidized), and low-ball you. The budgets are dramatically slashed. Everything for a dime if they can help it. And they still want ~2000 employees across the board for the endeavor.
I can't say the days of having the 100 day break and coming back to Microsoft are still here. I've been one of those a- employees and entered my break knowing my job wasn't going to be there due to a re-org. One of my friends there at the time that went on break earlier wasn't remotely lucky about knowing that her job was going to disappear. Saying that the 100 day break at MS is a paid vacation is based on the assumption that there will be a job for you at the end of it is a bit untrue. One gets just as stressed out and still has to hunt for a jo likely before.
John Titor? Is that that you?
It's not often that I find myself defending on feature of Microsoft, as I prefer Linux and OS X, but this is one time I think I shall. There was a time that anything you could do on standard Windows could be done just as well on Server. That was the point of the portability of the operating system. It just is cost prohibitive thanks to the new SKU system (post Windows NT 4.0, of course) that really changed that. As long as it still can be a drop-in (replacement) for Vista, I think I'm happy. Without all of the vacuum sucking feelings.
It's Stephen Fry that I was hoping made it, but they chose Rowan.
In regards to "Fascist Warning Sign #5: Rampant sexism," we've had feminism which probably advances where the line is drawn. How about the scapegoating of GLBT issues? It's just as bad as far as polarization goes.
We need more vespine gas!
I've driven many English teachers and peers nuts with that keyboard. It really does echo through a quiet classroom. Sucked, because that was the only keyboard I had availabile at the time, because someone had tossed a baseball towards me and it hit the laptop keyboard warping it. So, I suppose that was adequate revenge.
You haven't updated to LTO yet? *tsk tsk*
Bring the rule book, if you can.
So, what about comparisons to toasters and coffee makers? They did that for Apollo 13.
Never trust "The Sun".
Yeah, I'm late to reply. I just find it odd that our skill-set hasn't even been remotely matched by the newcomers in my exact predicament, let alone the rest of the teams. You milage may very, but as far as I've seen, my assessment is correct. There's 8 of us, 2 of them, in theory there's another 6 somewhere that they're suppose to cut over to at the end of the month. The offshoring SDM on the matter said that they were eager to be taking this account, but the reality is that, despite being directed what to do exactly so their people would be prepared, they've ignored it completely from our training, getting involved with the process currently used on the account with the customer and the very daily duties. Never mind that they're also suppose to be taking the higher level duties like sizing and media orders. The newcomers just don't give a damn and they've got excuses to match for why they're not performing. In the end, we're not the ones to be blamed for why their skillsets don't match up to the problems with the environment we use to maintain. It'll be them sitting on the call trying to evade the customer's point-blank questions for the failure. The top-line account manager's and some of the SDM's US side are seriously freaked out about what is going to happen at the end of this month. They *are* afraid that this will cost them the account given the gross mismanagement and irresponsibility during this whole affair. I've seen some incompetence in other teams, but it has gone up massively on my account when I've had to tell their Argentinian and Brazilian replacements how to do a few simple things like changing the NIC speed and duplex on an adapter when auto-negotiation fails and backups aren't working to how do deal with things like swap space. Reboots have gone to being a weekly and daily affair on this account. I don't think they're really in search of answers at this point. SLAs are gonna be blown a lot more in the coming days. That's gonna be hard to downplay and I'm sure the costs to IBM might just outweigh the staff they just slashed.
Well, I understood that was a potential possibility. I was hoping to jump from full-time contractor to full-time IBmer. It didn't work out alas. It's just scary even see the 3 IBMers on the team to go right with us. The other teams UNIX and INTEL just had the same thing happen. That was 100 people right there, contractors and IBMers.
Ironically, I'd have to say I'm rather talented in that I get the job done right the first time and end up overworked for it. I'm kinda envious of your vacation and labor laws. Maybe it's time for me to leave the US. Not everyone in the US is the leech you generalize us to be. ;)
Actually, the jobs went to Argentina, India, China, and Brazil. The US jobs just were axed. So, IBM Global Services will continue until their contracts turn around them for failing to deliver on their SLAs (Service Level Agreements) because their workforce is potentially incompetent for when a real problem comes along. Not all of these replacements are even remotely as skilled as their US counterparts. Just cheaper.
Actually, having done this first hand... I've had to train my replacement. It doesn't take 5 years. Just a few month transition period.
IBM has been massively quiet on lay-offs for many years. It's just their style. It's bad for PR when it is that visible, let alone that it demoralizes the staff. IBM, through unofficial sources, has created ~70,000 jobs off seas while axeing a comparable amount (50,000) here in America. And that's before this latest round that we see today. The tracker is at http://www.techsunite.org/offshore/
It's true. I'm soon to be out of my job at the end of the month, as well as the rest of my team (IBMers and (Perma-Temp) Contractors. My account was slated for transfer to Brazil in January and the talks started before that. We were expected to train our replacements who have basically been warm bodies. They're not even particularly talented. The rest of IBM Global Services is going the same way. So this is a VERY real thing. I was hoping to get hired on this year to IBM from being a contractor and that's shot. I'm just concerned given the massive offshoring that's occurring and how much this WILL impact IT. The displacement of this many workers is still going to have quite an impact on IT.
IBM has also implemented LEAN in effort to cut their IBM'er workforce in response to offshore outsourcing, which ironically is the very thing they're doing themselves. The survivors, although being survivors might mean they sorta wished they weren't. It's seriously bad. I'd suggest not touching IBM with a 10 foot pole. They're calling this the wave of the future... if they want to turn IT into something equated as fast food. That's the dream they're going for.
Check out http://www.ibmemployee.com/ . They have more news on the matter.
The sad part about the whole thing is that I enabled this to happen. I've spent my time there since day one migrating dying backup environments from Veritas Backup Exec and ArcServe IT to TSM and the resulting clean-up work. I am massively disappointed.
Anyone need a Arcserve / Veritas / Tivoli Storage Administrator ?
Why not? It worked in Blazing Saddles.
I already thought they were already backed up on to NSA servers. Well... intercepted.
In Soviet Russia, CAR watches you. In America... car watches you too. :-/