Have heard several groups that have “all hands” scheduled for tomorrow, including the group I work in. Services. Anyone heard about this? Is it a reorganization or are we getting the ax?
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Found this gem in older posts. We had one scheduled before Christmas which was then cancelled. Last week they told us that there was an “ongoing alignment of skills.” They just weren’t ready for layoffs yet. I hope my management, who hasn’t done any skill building in years, are considered just as much as we are.
oh wow, if IBM is betting everything on the Cloud and jettisoning the legacy which by the is what is still making most of the money for this company then IBM is doomed.
All hands meaning whom? I never received any emails to attend an all hands meeting?
This mean I am a chosen one? Yikes
I work in services and our center has no clients on the IBM cloud.
We were told IBM cloud is the future of IBM and if our clients do not move to cloud then they wont be IBM clients much longer. That was a quote directly from Ginni on her visit here.
Old legacy supported accounts are just a big liability to IBM's new support structure.
All the IBM tools are dying off, it just makes sense to dump services at this point.
4tjf. And what does Bain do??? Spinoff, slimdown, and breakup jump to mind. I believe their go to market strategy is exactly what you just laid out in your post. Sell to a holding company named Bain. That’s what we do “Best”.
This makes me laugh. The rumors about Services being sold are as old as the PWC acquisition itself. At the time we all thought it was a “flip” but 20 years on we still have them. Since the downward spiral began, we hear the rumors of a sale every year. Because of the scope of Services, clients would perceive a conflict of interest if any large firm bought them. No firm would give up work in the days of a declining consulting market and smaller firms don’t have the cash to buy Services. The only possible way I could see it happening is to sell to a “holding company” who would gut Services and parcel it up in pieces to where it could be sold to the lowest bidder and avoid conflicts of interest.
I’ll really start laughing when the SWG sale rumors pick up again.
3opq. It’s closer than you think. Rumor is Bain takes Services and Texas Pacific takes HW division
The real question is how IBM is going to finance the $34 Billion acquisition of Red Hat?
IBM is getting $1.8 Billion from the software just sold to HCL. IBM has around $13 Billion of cash on hand, but they will probably use/spend only a fraction of it for the acquisition. For sure IBM will only want to borrow as little as possible to finance the acquisition. Is IBM going to raise some of the money by issuing new stock, doubtful. So, essentially something has to give... and IBM will end up selling more stuff, ie IBM Services which is today the combination of GBS + GTS. IBM has been moving the people they need from GTS to Systems the past few months to insure they have enough people to support the Cloud operations. All the rest will be sold off... hopefully at a high price though looking at the track record of IBM selling stuff, we can all wonder!!!
No way man, services is going to be sold for sure.
Quit being delusional thinking IBM will keep them.
I don’t think a sale is imminent. Ginni’s M.O. is to cut sales staff and increase self-service to the point where we don’t need a sales staff. The plan is then Services can peddle IBM products direct to clients off the back of their existing contracts.
@gvx agree. No one in services should be surprised if they get cut or sold. The overhead makes them uncompetitive on price, and attempts to be competitive result in a lousy customer experience.
Any news from any hands ?
Customer: "But I'm over 40. Can I still apply for rewards?"
Cashier: "Of course you can. My goodness, did you work at IBM too?"
Do you have our rewards card? Would you like to apply for one?
Still proud?
Fortunately, your experience at IBM with its agile workspaces and steady flow of over-processed b_llsh_t will prepare you well for a gig jockeying cash registers.
Sell off? Are you kidding me? A sell off? Hahaha! - coach Mora
Who hasn't been thru this already right? Pretty common in the IT sector.
Keep on the sunny side of life people.
What are some good things to come out of a sell off?
The internal IBM fluff will be dumped immediately! Tell me this would not make your day.
The shame is that IBM did not address all their waste for several years but instead kept adding layers upon layers instead. Can you say Lean or Agile? Real important stuff here guys.
Oh well, I blame the sheep who followed the CEO's path to nowhere.
"we're on the road to nowhere, come on inside"
Just think pretty soon you will see some of your coworkers jockeying cash registers.
Don't worry.... it's just the IBM equivalent of the Yuletide log for certain lucky staff....except this one is brown, stinks and pointed at one end (to stop Ginni's a---ho!e closing with a bang) and is wholly unsuitable as a table decoration. Don't worry if you miss out this year, there'll be plenty more for everyone in 2019!!
Well they won't be announcing 15% bonuses all round so what do you think it is??? Happy Christmas from IBM.
If you are in IBM Services, that division will get sold off before the end of Q2 2019. Time to open your eyes and plan for the future. IBM needs 34 Billion to buy Red Hat, where do you think it will find the money? Using cash on hand, borrowing money? Not really, the bulk of the money will come from divestitures, aka sell some division(s).
trust me, nothing special, just a routine "all hands"