Rumours of Further IBM Shutdowns
With "RA Looming" (mass layoffs totally plausible at this stage) we can expect more buildings of IBM to become ghost towns while the IBM-friendly media blames "urban explorers". Because the large swimming pool above is empty... only because of those "urban explorers", of course!
Not due to IBM rotting out of existence.
"I am also hearing that IBM is planning to close more offices in US," somebody wrote this morning. "Don't know which one though, so it will be a guessing game."
"They should just shut down that money pit in Albany already," someone responded.
We keep hearing this.
It's about cutting "costs" to fake growth (with "assets" that are empty buildings).
Is IBM going to become a real estate company?
"Some technical parts of the company have had travel bans 3 or 4 quarters a year since late 1997," someone has said, "with the exception of two years. Travel had opened up widely in late 95 after the Cookie Monster stabilized things, but in late Q3 of 97 the door slammed shut due to balance sheet surprises. That was supposedly a one time special case. The wording and justification worked so well they’ve never stopped repeating the excuse."
IBM is cutting off the tree to sell the trunk and the branches for chipping. The process started 3 decades ago when IBM was about 70-75. Back then IBM was 'retiring' and the person who did this retirement for IBM died months ago.
Gerstner is often blamed as the biggest culprit [1, 2], hardly the one who "saved IBM" (popularised fantasy immortalised by a self-promotional book which borrows "elephants"... not the "white elephant" complexes of IBM). As someone put it a short while ago: "The IBM Culture vanished when Lou Gerstner took over."
There's also the old joke about layoffs cast as "promotions to customer".
Someone wrote about the impending layoffs and lack of promotions that are due: "Promotions to customer are ongoing. Nothing new here."
IBM is going out of existence and Red Hat insiders rightly worry. █