Mis-match
by Volker Weber
Lots of things have been said about IBM laying off some of their best people, offering some of them jobs in low-wage regions. This from a company with record profits, in business areas that report record growth over years.
I understand that businesses have to adjust to changing markets. If a company feels it needs to lay off people, that can only mean one of two things: bad outlook or bad ethics. We will see what it is for IBM.
Comments
Volker, that is somewhat over simplified. Keeping profit up is essential for raising capital, which is essential for investing in new business, innovations and new ideas. And good profits are even essential for customers selecting their vendors. No customer wants to buy from an unhealthy vendor. I do not think it´s a clear cut decision between money and moral.
Felix, IBM tells me its business is booming and healthy.
what strikes me odd is that they try to keep it under hidden instead of telling whats done. hiding stuff under the carpet usually misfires.
Well the IBM x86 server business for example is neither booming nor healthy. No surprise for me as I see projects now being won by vendors that have a full story from Desktop / Mobile solutions to Servers.
And even if a business is booming and healthy raising shareholders value often can be a challenge. At the end you often end up charging more for less and cutting costs. Unfortunately in many segments there now are oligopolies and the big players share a common strategy.
Is it signs of the time? Jobs are shifted from the US to Asia and South America. IBM is becoming less and less a US company. Less the half of the workforce is US based for quite a while and almost half of the revenue comes from units with managers that don't have a US boss short of Sam. So the business might have been healthy but might not sustain in the US.
We live in interesting times as the old Chinese curse goes.
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