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View Full Version : I, Cringely: LEAN and Mean

mbbrutman
May 4th, 2007, 05:59 PM
I tend to keep my offtopic posts to a minimum, but this was too interesting to pass up. And it is more on topic than the price of a gallon of air ..

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070504_002027.html

Abstract: IBM plans to outsource their services group heavily, lay many people off, and drop unprofitable customers.



Mike
80sFreak
May 4th, 2007, 06:29 PM
But why is none of this in any other news including financial news?

Cheers,

80sFreak
mbbrutman
May 4th, 2007, 06:48 PM
Because it's not news. It is a column and he is a columnist.

If it comes to pass, then it will be news.
chuckcmagee
May 4th, 2007, 08:36 PM
At least my "air OT thing" didn't leave me feeling like my guts had been cut out with a tire iron!!!

That whole column about IBM brought up so many bad feeling on my part that I can hardly stand it now.

I couldn't understand it then and I still can't but corporations seem to love to fire ALL the people that have any legacy knowledge. Sure make sense -- hire 3 young people for what you paid "the old fart". Of course, none of the 3 can help any customers because they don't have a clue. Well, guess that's ok, as won't be any customers anyway.
mbbrutman
May 5th, 2007, 06:59 AM
I'm not sure if the whole thing will come to pass, but remember, this is IBM employees feeding him this material, not speculation. Given previous history with the pension plan and the pressure to get the stock price up, none of this suprises me.

And yes, it is hard to watch.
80sFreak
May 5th, 2007, 05:57 PM
I'm not sure if the whole thing will come to pass, but remember, this is IBM employees feeding him this material, not speculation. Given previous history with the pension plan and the pressure to get the stock price up, none of this suprises me.

And yes, it is hard to watch.

How much more money do they need to make? I checked out their income statement.. Last year their net income was 9.5 Billion. The year before it was 7.9 Billion. And now they are going to put 100,000 people out of work so that their stock price will go up and (of course) they will make even more money.

Cheers,

80sFreak

P.S. Anyone else see "The Big One" by Michael Moore?
SwedaGuy
May 7th, 2007, 10:10 AM
That's really sad...we've been a primarily IBM shop for quite some now, and over the last few years the service has gotten worse and worse...They actually make it difficult for us to continue to be customers. That's a really bad idea...
80sFreak
May 7th, 2007, 07:01 PM
It looks like the massive layoffs may be "hogwash" according to NetworkWorld (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/050707-ibm-layoffs.html).

Cheers,

80sFreak
mbbrutman
May 7th, 2007, 08:13 PM
Bob Djurdjevic has been around for a while as an analyst. I trust him as far as I can throw him. An analyst is somebody you pay to say things that you can't be caught saying. Nobody from within IBM has come out to deny the rumor. Bob never seemed to mind Gerstner's excessive stock options either.

In the early 90s IBM had about 350,000 employees. By the time Lou Gerstner was done, it was down to 200,000. With the recent spate of acquisitions the number of employees has ballooned again to 350000.

It took a few years to go from 350000 down to 200000 the first time. I doubt that Cringely is right and that IBM can drop 150000 employees in a year; that might be a longer term goal. But a few tens of thousands? Maybe. Freezing the pension plan? Sure .. we're almost expecting that. And more outsourcing? Absolutely.