Seems strange that his chat with the CEO meetings have been changed this past month about 3-4 times now. Something is in the air and maybe it's the 20% price drop from 199/share early March to 165 at Friday's close. My manager has canceled 1:1s and lots of pressure on billing and removing project resources.
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It sure looks like IBM is just timing the market with issuing pre-funded debt. If so, that says they borrowed 10-12 billion before interest rates went up (early 2023) and banked cash flow (late 2023-2024) when they could earn better interest rates with cash. IBM has a history of timing the market when it comes to cash flow, and I expect they did it again.
https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/fitch-rates-ibm-senior-notes-a-29-01-2024
sold the 500 complex for $66 million this year, so they have that cash!
A drop in the bucket towards paying just the interest on the $63 billion debt our dear company has.
Tivoli is still in production maybe renamed but I have friends who are still supporting it 30yrs later! Not sure about Rational.. Also remember they sold the 500 complex for $66 million this year, so they have that cash!
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article283198328.html
IBM has already batched them up. It’s called RTO! When you have an 80-85% leave rate when selected for RTO, you pretty much control the narrative, and know the outcome of the stated policy. Look for IBM NA to go down to approx 37.5k head count over 2nd q. IBM offshored just about everyone they could in “support” roles over the last 3 years, for low cost countries. Now IBM is aiming for “mature” SW as they are the easiest to target and replace. Remember IBM now purchases its innovation vs internally developing it. When your model is built around purchasing innovation, it becomes very very easy to decide when to offshore the fully mature SW. (approx 3-4 years). Why? Because labor has become your primary cost and offshoring labor to a commodity labor pool (India, Eastern Europe, Central America, and even Africa) becomes the go to play. The CEO and CFO have decided. Cost take out is easier within IBM vs innovation. So there you have it. The new IBM model = Buy innovation, blue wash the innovation (3-4 years), offshore and milk it. Repeat.
AK looking for new job......
IBM may be 'batching' up the layoffs in multiple companies or divisions to make it feel like less of a big deal, announcing one large lump (e.g. 10k) instead of 1k every week
From a comment posted on the Kyndryl board, here's the particulars on the WARN notice: IBM hasn't actually pulled the trigger on it yet. They only filed an intent of notice to use a WARN.
@2rfa+1snuSpun --
Don't see IBM anywhere on this list.
I only saw one reschedule and that was because they were d-mb enough to schedule the first call on May 1st, which is a holiday almost everywhere outside North America.
https://www.commerce.nc.gov/data-tools-reports/labor-market-data-tools/workforce-warn-reports/report-workforce-warn-listings-2024/open
Where are WARN notices posted?
Tivoli products are embedded in some of the Security solutions (TIM &TAM) None of that stuff ever performed as promised LOL Rational is likewise embedded in some of the IoT solutions and had a "somewhat" better track record.
IBM is slimming down and therefore they need to focus. From reading the other forum comments, it's probably safe to assume that they are judging every remaining division and every project to see if it's strategic, income-generating and sustainable. They then judge every employee to see who is necessary and who is expendable. They can't afford to hide their lack of productivity in the services results like they've done so much in the past, because Kyndryl is gone and much of consulting may go with them.
I imagine (but admittedly have no evidence) that if you're not part of their legacy enterprise line (mainframes and major software products), or part of one of their most recent acquisitions (Red Hat and onward), then your job is at risk.
For anyone who knows...are Tivoli and Rational still a thing? Do those products still exist in the current IBM catalog? Just wondering...I'm showing my age, heh.
I have not observed IBM filing any warn notices. Yes that would be a big change I IBM behavior if true
IBM is out of cash, and they have cut so much stuff over the years that they no longer have any working room to cook the books and keep staff. Even a morbidly obese person can lose weight to the point of starving to death if they don't get enough calories.
@uuc+1snuSpun --
Link to or some other official evidence of the WARN notice please.
Yes something very big is brewing IBM has recently filed WARN Act actions. They have NEVER done that before. We will know in 60 days