Grasping at Straws in IBM (Red Hat Layoff Rumours in 2024)
This morning: Next Week Marks a Year Since Red Hat Mass Layoffs, Another Round Would be "Consistent With Other Layoffs at IBM."
TODAY we spent several hours (yes, literally hours!) researching rumours around Red Hat layoffs. There's a lot of gossip, but nothing very concrete yet.
Don't be easily distracted by people who try to frame this as an issue of race and politics (it's a distraction), e.g. this ongoing thread about IBM layoffs:
IBM's first-quarter-earnings report is expected on April 24, 2024 (exactly one year after Red Hat formally announced mass layoffs; it was announced by the CEO on April 24, 2023).
"The 24th is next Wednesday," an associate explains. "I suppose they might try to postpone the full report until Friday afternoon of that week."
One thing I recently noticed is that you need to "come back" and check days later, if not weeks later, to get the full report and all the pertinent numbers. In fact I noticed that some companies hide deepening debt this way. There is a long delay.
This may sound weird, but this is probably not a new trick. First they announce the "good news" and later on they offload all the bad stuff. Nobody is still around for the latter. The media "moved on"...
"There will probably be an initial press release on Wednesday," the associate says, "with only the favorable highlights, with some vague mumbling about the full report coming later."
We're talking about Wednesday, but not tomorrow (Wednesday the week after that).
Following a similar pattern, the associate says that Microsoft "always does that with belated acknowledgement of RCEs and other exploits. Though in that they admit first to the older versions being vulnerable with admonishment to buy the 'next version', to be followed two or three weeks later with a very, very quiet Friday afternoon admission that the 'next version' is vulnerable too, that latter admission is never publicized even in the press."
The bunch of us in IRC (not just the above associate) are watching closely the comments online and speak to people behind the scenes. We have prioritised looking for the layoff/RA news they try to hide and downplay (when the public finds out). We reckon someone will squeak sooner or later, even before Red Hat makes a formal announcement. Our associate notes that "such info is well-hidden even after it is announced."
They try to control/shape the narrative.
Excellent spin would frame the whole thing as "efficiencies" or buzzwords like "AI". Don't fall for it. The real issue is a lack of funds or just pure greed.
Red Hat is very important to GNU/Linux, but we mostly view it as a victim of vicious IBM managers and a Board that neither uses nor understands the community. █
