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Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 05, 2025

Only 4 weeks ago:

Getting to know Navtez Singh Bal, Vice President: Prior to joining Red Hat, Navtez held several leadership roles, including chief operating officer for India at Microsoft

IBM is floundering. Yes, just ask anyone you know inside IBM. He or she will tell you. It's hard to find anybody in IBM who predicts a bright future or some renaissance for IBM. The reasons for that are a long and complicated subject, but the short version is, IBM is way too reliant on "legacy" products and contracts associated with those products are slipping away. IBM must get something new or invent something new. But the brain drain and mass layoffs prevent or significantly reduce the prospects of that ever happening.

Right now there are layoffs there. We particularly like the comments in that page. They're acting like an emotional support network for colleagues who lost their job at IBM.

IBM's Red Hat is pretty much the same, with or without it being "blue".

"Expect an IBM spinoff of the small/medium customers set to a USA based PC/storage provider quite soon. NOTE all of this also aligns with the recent Redhat news. It’s all in on Enterprise and everything else goes," this thread noted yesterday.

Lately we (and others) noticed many people leaving Red Hat, including very high-profile Linux developers. Yesterday we mentioned Hans de Goede leaving and as noted a few minutes ago there's already LLM slop with slop images about it:

Slop or fake: Red Hat’s Hans de Goede Departs After 17 Years of Linux Hardware Innovations

That does not even look like him! That's what slopfarms do.

"He will be replaced by an Indian," somebody said about Hans de Goede leaving Red Hat, whereas Phoronix said good things about "Linux Hardware Enablement Leader Hans de Goede" and there are many thank-yous in the comments. I myself have tremendous respect for the work done by him. He never participated in anything bad inside Red Hat (like TPMs or DRM or whatever).

The following comment from several hours ago reckons many Red Hat jobs are moving east:

We are witnessing the dismantling of Red Hat in the US, what's left is going to India, where they hired a former McKinsey to manage it.

They claim that India is growing, but despite so called high growth rates, it's only $200 million and won't go much higher.

McKinsey was hited last year (March 2024 news(): "Red Hat tries on a McKinsey cap in quest to streamline techies' jobs"

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/27/red_hat_hires_mckinsey/

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bql18o/red_hat_hires_mckinsey_to_streamline_techies_jobs/

Then, last month, this happens - a former McKinsey became regional manager in India:

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/enterprise-services/red-hat-appoints-navtez-singh-bal-as-new-vp-gm-for-india-and-south-asia/123162309

Now Hans leaves, a.k.a. talent continues to jump boat.

Folks, that's the plan. AK was supposed to manage this $34 billion dollar acquisition for success. He didn't. But his plan to dismantle IBM and move what's left to his homeland is working "perfectly". Why "perfectly"? Because investors, shareholders, regulators, lawyers, etc are doing nothing.

Also see this:

McKinsey is behind many of the tech layoffs + moving things to then China, now India... "we were just following recommendations" corporations then say (CEOs, CFOs, etc).

If you work for McKinsey, you are not a nice person. Just saying...

We already mentioned this several times this week. The above focus on McKinsey overlooks the fact that he came to Red Hat directly from Microsoft. If he makes Red Hat weaker, Microsoft will benefit.

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