Thread regarding IBM layoffs

Red Hat layoffs Sept 2019

@11WlQjli

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Post ID: @OP+128PknGY

17 replies (most recent on top)

Openshit is awful to install.

Just wait til all of the outsourced employees improve it to death.

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Post ID: @ckzq+128PknGY

IBM paid too much for a company with almost zero intellectual property. Their software is getting worse. Openshit is awful to install. I think IBM would have been better off buying someone else. They don't need RHEL.

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Post ID: @ckig+128PknGY

According to the WSJ there were 3 bidders Redhat was essentially auctioning itself off. Prior to the final round of bidding Google and IBM were at 165 a share. Redhat asked for best and final. Google and the other company didn’t up their bid as they thought it was fairly valued. IBM decided to up their bid not only to win, but to stop any other bids coming after Redhat made their selection. Thus the 190 per share. Wall Street analysts had said there was a very good chance that Goggle would come back to the table if IBM didn’t end it then.

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Post ID: @chds+128PknGY

If Red Hat was worth it then Google would have outbid IBM, they know IBM paid too much.

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Post ID: @bzyj+128PknGY

Keep reading Google submitted a bid for RHT, can someone please provide a citation where Google did bid on RHT?

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Post ID: @bpkr+128PknGY

Now you are starting to get it. SO and AMS must be dumped as time moves on due to very low margins, BUT what do you backfill them with. Until Redhat came along it was pretty thin pickings. Redhat is no bargain. Paying 34 billion for a 4 billion in revenue company is quite a premium. IBM wasn’t going to continue to bid for the Redhat auction, until they saw Google bid 29.5 billion then they upped their bid. Why did IBM up their bid. They saw that they could harvest their “legacy” accounts (Z and Power) via using Redhat. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft had already harvested the IBM abandoned Intel low hanging fruit and IBM got burned badly in that marketplace via Softlayer and their poorly thought out go to market strategy. IBM decided to exploit their only monopoly left. Legacy. Their problem was how do you get your legacy customers into an operational Cloud offering, that you have zero legacy success with. (honestly, has IBM ever had a successful cloud offering in its past? They have renamed their legacy cloud offerings multiple times due to every cloud offering being stillborn. With Softlayer not delivering Intel cloud, and Legacy shrinking 2-5% a year, something had to change). Redhat was the bet. Exploit LINUX to move your legacy customers. Will it grow enough to allow IBM to dump the SO and AMS empty calories? We’ll soon enough know the answer. It’s not about revenue growth, but about revenue shift. Cognitive has to start growing faster than GTS/GBS is shrinking. If it doesn’t the Redhat bet was a poor one. Selling SO, AMS and possibly TSS (low margin, shrinking, or non-strategic) would be one way to raise a fair amount of revenue to invest into your cognitive growth strategy, BUT the CFO seems reluctant to cut revenues that drastically. THUS the bleeding via a 1000 cuts strategy. This bet will take time to finally know whether it was a good one, but all signs point to the current IBM management not being aggressive enough, and allowing the established cloud providers to steal their legacy customers vs IBM converting their legacy customers

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Post ID: @ajha+128PknGY

I work in GBS. The “merger” promised 2 years ago still hasn’t happened and we continue to fight GTS over scope. From what I see, there is no moving away from low margin portions of both divisions- SO and AMS. There are no new deals- just huge SO and AMS contract renewals, sometimes with carve outs for consulting but in a “rob one to pay the other” fashion. I am left being very confused. Because if the strategy is to shed low margin business, why is that the only business that is pursued?

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Post ID: @asyl+128PknGY

@9ves,
Ginni gave us the cloud speech years ago "if you're not working with cloud you wont be with IBM"
That was right after IBM purchased Softlayer. Funny thing is IBM is in far worse shape now after the Red Hat purchase so I think the cloud speak is all hogwash. They are losing in cloud and they know it.
Spin it all you want but cloud is laying off so something is a miss here. I say it's Red Hat.

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Post ID: @9kio+128PknGY

If you say GTS and GBS are now one, I believe you. BUT there are segments of the “services” business that IBM no longer wants. TSS is a perfect example. I would venture to say there are pieces of “old GTS and GBS” that IBM wishes to divorce. The body shop piece “your mess for less” is yet another perfect example. Body shop engagements just don’t have the margins in them. Ibm will adopt Cloud and all things Redhat / LINUX as they move forward. If you are in services and don’t encounter Redhat / Linux, your future at IBM is most likely suspect

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Post ID: @9ves+128PknGY

@6nzb,

GTS and GBS are glued together now for good, there is no 1 vs the other anymore.

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Post ID: @8yjl+128PknGY

Red Hat's software stinks. They're doing dumb things with Linux (I prefer Ubuntu). Their kernel was at 3.10 forever - way longer than the other Linux vendors. Openshift is a dud. The process of upgrading from RHEL 7.6 to RHEL 8 is broken. In a few years (in a container world), who will care about RHEL? Who cares about Openstack anymore? This acquisition was bad for IBM.

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Post ID: @8ucy+128PknGY

What happens to Watson Health Imaging?

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Post ID: @7fxa+128PknGY

Look for Redhat to assume the Cognitive portion of IBM, both public facing wise, and responsibility wise. GTS is the body shop perform with some cloud sprinkled in. GBS is the consulting/education/transformational part of IBM and finally HW is just that (Legacy). Watch for IBM to re-org into two pieces as time moves on. Cognative (all things cloud/AI/LINUX) and GBS (consulting/education/transformation/and cloud perform). GTS will be dumped as IBM realizes there isn’t a profitable model within IBM for a body shop. HW will also be spun off as IBM wants out of the legacy business and selling HW along with TSS is the way to accomplish that.

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Post ID: @6nzb+128PknGY

Not sure why they're expanding their office space if they're shrinking:

As more Red Hatters are hired, space inside Red Hat tower becomes more flexible –
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article237406439.html

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Post ID: @6xiw+128PknGY

It doesn't take a layoff. Smart RH people just need to look around and see their future at IBM.

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Post ID: @3ora+128PknGY

Is this true ? I’ve seen couple of senior architects leaving RH in linked in. Hard to believe if it is true.

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Post ID: @2uvm+128PknGY

I am in shock because Red Hat is in such demand......NOT

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Post ID: @cvb+128PknGY

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