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IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department

139 points by TerminalJunkie 10y ago

jlebrech 10y ago
maybe there's a new and exciting product that they want to develop that needs everyone's exclusive attention, or it's a business idea that will fail miserably.
al2o3cr 10y ago
“It’s time for Act II: WINNING!” read the subject line of Peluos’s blog post Nothing says "high-quality leadership role-model" like Charlie Sheen.
- talawahdotnet 10y ago
  Could also be presidential quote. This timeline we are on is really weird.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    Abed (from Community) rolled the dice wrong and we're on the second darkest timeline. I say second darkest because I believe there is a timeline where Trump would have started WW3 already.
    - randomguy23 10y ago
      The timeline where Hillary became President has already been ended. so yeah, maybe second.
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
It worked out ever so well for Yahoo when Mayer did it so surely it'll work for IBM who has two orders of magnitude more employees...actually, perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations?
- brational 10y ago
  > perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations? That's the only explanation that makes sense.
  - markgavalda 10y ago
    Why not simply fire those who they don't want to work with anymore? They're clearly used to do that at IBM and it would be much more controlled and cost effective.
    - GoToRO 10y ago
      They don't know who those people are :)
    - spcelzrd 10y ago
      You have to pay them to leave. You have to endure the publicity of large scale layoffs. This way, you are progressive, agile, and team oriented.
    - halbritt 10y ago
      In a large bureaucratic corporation, individuals are never "fired". They are "managed out". Check out the book Corporate Confidential.
    - rad_gruchalski 10y ago
      Because the cost of firing (dismissing) someone depends on where they have their contract. It might be zero cost in the US but the US is not the World. In Europe it would cost them tons of money to remove hundreds of jobs in a single swipe. OTOH, let people leave, no cost for them.
  - gspetr 10y ago
    > That's the only explanation that makes sense. It does not have to make sense, could simply be a case of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor IBM could be a place where you just might encounter a pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.
pm90 10y ago
Disclosure: I'm a developer at IBM, but not speaking in official capacity. The comment here is completely personal. I went through this article and it seems like a lot of FUD. The line to note is: > Though not every department at IBM will be asked to colocate, many will. So yes, some departments have been "asked" to colocate. However, AFAIK nobody is being "forced". My team lead was asked to colocate but decided to stay where they are because of personal reasons (family). Speaking generally, I've had incredibly flexible hours, more so than at any other place I've worked so far (and I have worked at some of the "hip" places). Anyways, the headline itself seems truly sensationalist.
- danso 10y ago
  So IBM employees who refuse the company's formal request to colocate shouldn't be nervous about their status in the medium to long-term future?
  - geodel 10y ago
    I agree. I think this is first step to separate out people who are unwilling to relocate. Next they will look at the work they are doing, if deemed non-critical I assume they will be first to go.
    - pm90 10y ago
      I mean, isn't that the case with any job? So sure, this might be an extra consideration when the time for layoffs comes around. My intention was not saying that nothing changed; emphasis on colocation is definitely a real thing. But IBM is not "ending remote work", as the headline says (it should be changed to the actual article title, which is more reasonable). It is most certainly allowed.
      - geodel 10y ago
        True, it is with any job. I still think it will be good filter for people who think IBM job is critical for them and family vs family and location is critical than IBM job. I agree IBM will most likely lose good remote workers but for company of IBM size individual super performers are not critical to their financial well being.
codingdave 10y ago
This isn't universal - a good friend of mine works for a team that is getting shipped off to IBM as part of a merger, and told to apply for the new IBM jobs if they want to keep working there. Ignoring the ugliness of that situation for the moment, he specifically asked about this news of remote work ending as it relates to how coding jobs would be impacted, and was told that the jobs he was applying for were intended to remain remote. All the news I have seen has been about the marketing team, and my story is just one team, so I have no real idea what the big picture is, but it seems to be more nuanced than what we are reading about in the news.
- rch 10y ago
  He should get that in writing.
- hubb 10y ago
  it might be that way while the company is run by ibm as a subsidiary, but my bet is the exception will end once they're full 'blue-washed'
- simpleProMan123 10y ago
  Every time I've found myself needing to ask, or had teammates who needed to ask the question "Is my job safe beyond the next month?" the answer has been "no."
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
alistproducer2 10y ago
Marissa Mayer did the same thing shortly after getting to Yahoo. I think the results there speak for themselves. There's never a case where a move like this will boost morale or attract/keep top talent. IMO moves like this are all about showing dominance and being a "person of action." It's corporate politics showmanship at the expense of results.
- devopsproject 10y ago
  > I think the results there speak for themselves 151% stock increase? Nearly double market cap?
  - alistproducer2 10y ago
    are you seriously arguing Mayer's tenure was a success? Every major decision she had her fingerprints on (sumly, tumblr, etc) turned out to be massive, expensive failures. Lots of external factors go into stock price so I would argue stock price alone is not a good indicator of leadership.
    - devopsproject 10y ago
      I'm no fan of hers but I think she failed at an impossible task and could have done a lot worse.
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
    I can't actually tell if you're kidding. Forgetting whatever made up number Wall St. has assigned as Yahoo's "worth" they've gone down in flames completely as an organization. I don't judge a business by the stock ticker, I judge one by their products.
  - leogiertz 10y ago
    Yahoo had a negative valuation if you removed their stake in Alibaba.
    - 10y ago
aantix 10y ago
When I went to sign up for Watson's API services, I had to allow for third party cookies just to enter my payment information. It was a pain just trying to dig through Chrome to allow this, but I wonder how many of their potential customers just punt on that point alone. For one of their flagship products, it's been an average experience at best.
zzalpha 10y ago
What I find a bit odd is that this is ostensibly about becoming more innovative. But does anyone really believe that major strategic business and product innovation occurs at the level of the individual contributors and teams who will be affected by this change? I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.
- pm90 10y ago
  > I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office. I think you are severely discounting the advantages of having people nearby/ in the same office. I'm not against working remotely, but personally do prefer a mix between working in the office and WFH. Its a lot easier to whiteboard designs and explain concepts. Its easy to ask a question and get an answer. There's also the other aspect of building a shared culture and getting to know your coworkers. That promotes a sense of comraderie so that when e.g. someone on the team has to take time off, there is a deadline for a deliverable or there is a service outage, the team works much more quickly and cohesively to solve problems. This also allows a better division of labor and I've seen this lead to many innovations as one person on the team focuses exclusively for a small time on solving a problem.
  - zzalpha 10y ago
    None of which addresses my point. I'm not talking about innovation in the small, where a dev comes up with a clever new bit of user experience or a snazzy new algorithm. That stuff is nice but it's incremental. I'm talking strategic innovation, the stuff that makes or breaks big companies like IBM when they're struggling to compete in 2017. I would never claim there aren't advantages to co-located engineers. But I struggle to believe that one of those advantages is big picture innovation as implied by the article.
padobson 10y ago
A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort. I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do something new. Our businesses are shrinking, so let's try something new: make our employees less productive. Despite the positive spin the writer puts on the plan, to me it seems like the death throes of past-their-prime companies. And based on what others have said in these comments, the change is mostly affecting marketing employees. I'd say co-location is a pet tactic of the writer, without any real evidence that remote work is anything but progress. If a job can be done remotely, it should be done remotely.
- wcummings 10y ago
  > Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. Downsizing this way means people with kids or other obligations that make controlling your own schedule convenient are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. FTFY.
  - geodel 10y ago
    You haven't really fixed much. I personally know quite a few people where work from home is basically another word for coasting or taking care of personal stuff while logged into company's system. And since many of them are hardly motivated for technical work it is not going to be easy to get another job with similar compensation along with WFH facility.
    - throw2016 10y ago
      I am sure many of us know or have known people who browse facebook, twitter and youtube at work all day. Anecdotal evidence or the actions of of a tiny minority is hardly helpful to any meaningful discussion and can be used to 'close down' any initiative.
geodel 10y ago
I have known many people who work in companies like Oracle, IBM etc where there is consulting at client location and then report at designated office. Generally reporting at designated office is very lax and people either are at client site or just stay at home. I wonder if tightening remote work requirement is for these people too. Lately at traditional IT companies even temporarily non-billable resources are increasingly being scrutinized for their output.
cwilkes 10y ago
I'm not sure how you attract new people to work for a company with 19 straight quarters of declining sales. Pinky swear that they will turn around this time?
kazinator 10y ago
Some thirty years ago I heard a joke from a friend's dad (employee of IBM) that it stands for "I've Been Moved". So this is just "IBM Classic" showing through the modern varnish.
- gspetr 10y ago
  They've come a long way since the 1930s: https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/tripping-through-ibms-astonishingly-insane-1937-corporate-songbook/ https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/tripping-through-ib...
dbg31415 10y ago
> In a video message, Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained the “only one recipe I know for success.” Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: “really creative and inspiring locations.” Why is this news coming from the CMO? Anyone know?
- cwilkes 10y ago
  I had to read the article multiple times as I thought the same thing. One paragraph mentions that the CMO is only talking about the marketing org, but that the sentiment is repeated elsewhere in the company. #winning
gibbitz 10y ago
If co-location is so great, why are they in six different offices? Call a layoff a layoff. I guess they avoid paying severance if you quit because you live in Idaho.
redm 10y ago
Remote work has many benefits, but it's not all upside. Possibly IBM saw the successes they had by co-locating the Watson, Marketing and Health squads compared and decided there was a lot of productivity being lost.
sklivvz1971 10y ago
Today, in the "companies that treat people like things" section we talk about IBM -- a company that routinely fires thousands of people. Today, the enlightened company is planning to relocate or dismiss the rest of their workforce, in the hope to change the company from the inventor and champion of all-that-is-waterfall to "agile". All with a straight face.
jmcdiesel 10y ago
IBM is so weird. I haven't worked for them, but I work with 2 former IBM Engineers in Austin... both of them say the same weird things.. like, you can't get two monitors (when one asked, he was declined, then his boss pulled an old CRT out of a closet and gave it too him... a 640x480 CRT from what must have been 184 years ago) ... And other weird tales that just seem antithetical to a tech company..
- mvdwoord 10y ago
  IBM is beyond weird. Source: I spent about 14 of the past 20 years there (as a contractor) in the Global Services division. But for all the weirdness, and downright idiocy at times, they were always truly supportive of working from home. None of those funny remarks or anything either with coworkers. At least in the teams I have worked in, everybody was always valued on output, not "visibility" or any of that typical business bullshitbingo. Of course, speaking from a technical role. Seen plenty of classic behaviour in management. Having said that, I could write books about the complete Twilight Zone that is IBM Services. Don't worry, I'll stick with writing invoices in stead ;)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- krona 10y ago
  IBM isn't a tech company. It's a brand with an impressive marketing department that sells experiences, not products. The rest of it (the stuff you don't see unless you get close enough) is an accumulation of spaghetti acquired in an ad hoc and aimless fashion.
  - coredog64 10y ago
    At my previous employer, we were evaluating solutions from IBM, TIBCO, and Oracle. The IBM solution was cheaper and met our needs. In the end, our VP nixed them with the statement of "I don't really want to support IBM software." The feeling was unanimous across the team.
briandear 10y ago
Whatever salary they're paying remoters now isn't going to be enough to live in NY or San Fran without a significant quality of life cut. And basically they get extra "work" out of you for free -- time spent commuting. So 40 hours a week becomes 50 hours a week assuming a 1-hour commute. Is it me or is this move seemingly initiated by female executives that want to project power in order to compensate for the perception that they are less dedicated to work because of their sex? Given a sample size of two, I would avoid working for anyone named Melissa.
andrenotgiant 10y ago
> Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained the “only one recipe I know for success.” Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: “really creative and inspiring locations.” That must be the same secret recipe that quartered[1] GILT's value in less than 10 years! [1] Gilt Groupe at one point valued at $1B, sold to HBC for $250M - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilt_Groupe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilt_Groupe
S_A_P 10y ago
IBM is a failed services company. Ive been a subcontractor for 2 projects run by IBM. Both fiascos of mismanagement. The project management at IBM had an incredible churn rate. On the first project, they were kicked off for completely failing to deliver. The second project had them completely marginalized. The sad thing is that it was another "big 4" consulting company that took over, who was only slightly less incompetent. I really have trouble understanding the big 4 consulting model. It mainly seems to consist of the following: 1) plant 2-300% of the consultants on site that are necessary 2) create an enormous amount of power point slides that look impressive but mainly say nothing 3) outsource the real work to India or cheap labor 4) deliver 25% of the requirements in 300% of the time
- mcguire 10y ago
  I was a "subcontractor" on 4 major IBM internal projects. All failed due to bad management. Then IBM became a services company. IBM has been failing for a long time.
- hnbroseph 10y ago
  the model is mostly around slick sales people scoring fat contracts from largely non-technical corporate bureaucrats. the rest is just trying to deliver as little as possible, as cheaply as possible, without outright violating the contract. real shame to apply the flimflam business consulting ethos to the it consulting arena, but it is the way of things.
- homakov 10y ago
  What kind of consulting was that? Anything about development?
  - S_A_P 10y ago
    Yes. I write custom code for several commodity trading risk management software platforms along with integration, implementation, interfaces, etc.
    - homakov 10y ago
archeantus 10y ago
I am remote, and have been for the last 3.5 yrs. As a software developer I find that the times I am least productive are when I need to work in an office. It is loud and distractions are everywhere. People stop by your desk to chat and ask for things, you inevitably get roped into ping-pong or foosball games, you take way longer lunches because that is what everyone else seems to be doing. The list goes on. I am always glad to get home from the office so I can focus and get work done in peace. It may not be the case for all roles, but for software development I think (motivated and diligent) remote workers are way more productive, and can provide a much better ROI for their employers.
snockerton 10y ago
For affected IBMers... find a new remote gig! https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job
deboboy 10y ago
This sort of 'cultural' double down is why I left. There's some talented people there - I'm thankful for everything I learned from them - but the culture is too rigid for creative exploration and [most importantly] discovery.
bitmapbrother 10y ago
IBM is not ending remote work. They're laying off thousands of North American workers every quarter and sending those jobs remotely to India.
jps359 10y ago
"the severance payment will be equal to one month’s base salary, the standard at IBM." Worth keeping in mind that this is the new policy as of about a year ago (they changed it before the big waves of layoffs last year). Before the change you would get a week for every 6 months worked, up to 23 weeks.
pinaceae 10y ago
HP did the same thing a couple years ago. Main reason is downsizing, easiest way to thin the herd. At that size, HR is just a spreadsheet exercise, quality of the individual employees does not factor in. Of course this will not affect their "remote" workforce in India, this is about the high-pay western markets.
homakov 10y ago
Unrelated: Are there people in the world who prefer spending 8 hours in the office vs 8 hours wherever they want (office OR home OR cafe)?
- stkrzysiak 10y ago
  I know someone who took an office gig after 5+ yrs of remote due to lack of the 'office experience'. He's a sane, smart guy, I think he just got tired of being home all the time. That or his kids reached the obnoxious age.
mathattack 10y ago
It's easy to forget that IBM is in the share buyback business. They're not a growing technology power. They have Watson, which isn't enough to save them. They can't invest money wisely, so every year they cut headcount and return some money to shareholders. It's the orderly returning of money to shareholders from a company that doesn't need investment anymore. So why should this company offer perks to compete with Google or a startup? They only need a shrinking subset of lifers to keep the lights on. If you want to telecommute, find a place that specializes in it.
bigmattystyles 10y ago
/IBM employee rant begin To me, the fact that IBM has for years encouraged remote work, been affirmatively OK with people moving hundreds, even thousands of miles from their nearest co-location center to then yanking this policy and forcing employees to decide whether to move in a short amount of time makes this, in my mind, a thinly-veiled downsizing effort. Imagine; for years, your department in is NY state, but you've been told it's totally cool to move to Colorado and work from home. In fact, IBM exclaims how it's good for the company because it saves space and money! You build your family's life there, then all the sudden - you have a month to decide to relocate to NY state (sell your house, change your kids' school, etc) or quit with a measly package. They won't even allow you to go to the nearby IBM office in Colorado because your group is based in NY state. I know employment is at-will, and what IBM is doing is perfectly legal. It doesn't mean it doesn't stink.
- justin66 10y ago
  > then all the sudden - you have a month to decide to relocate to NY state Is that actually happening to you? pm90 below indicated that IBM wasn't doing this.
  - bigmattystyles 10y ago
    Not me personally, definitely to others I work with - there's been hints of no enforcement until later this year but nothing official. Edit: And as PM90 said, it does seem to be only some departments. PM90 said the article creates FUD, but I think you could argue IBM is doing that to its employees with this.
- jps359 10y ago
  Yep... I know people who were affected in the same way you described -- encouraged to work remotely, so they bought houses in other states years ago, and then told 3 months in advance that they would need to return to the office. Of the people I know, one chose retirement, a few chose to leave, one chose to relocate, one was allowed to stay remote.
menckenjr 10y ago
This sounds like an attempt to graft a small-company or startup atmosphere onto the dying trunk of a behemoth.
joshstrange 10y ago
I use to think that remote work was goal I should be aiming for but after have a few friends did it and I thought more about it I've decided I would hate it. On the surface it sounds great and while I fully support working from home a few times a month I can't support any more than that. One of my good friends that did it has an interesting take, he said that since he was more introverted he thought he was perfect for remote work when in fact it made him miserable. His dad worked remotely for a large part of his life but was an extrovert. He concluded that contrary to what may seem like common sense introverts do worse in remote work because the office is where they get a majority of their human interaction while extroverts are going to make that happen regardless of if they go into an office every day. I have no experience with working from home for a long period of time but I know calling into meetings is the worst and that there are a TON of decisions/conversations that you get ZERO input on (most of the time you don't even know they happened) when you are remote. I have never been so happy that I didn't get a remote job I interviewed for a few years ago. As much as I hate companies giving a perk and then taking it away I can't help but think this is the right move for IBM. PS: Yes HipChat/Slack/Jira/GitLab/GitHub/etc/etc/etc can help with this but you are fooling yourself if you think that the people in the office are going to record every single interaction/conversation/etc of note. Remote-only teams might be an exception but even then you really do lose the ability to roll over to co-workers chair and have an impromptu conversation.

139 points by TerminalJunkie 10y ago

maybe there's a new and exciting product that they want to develop that needs everyone's exclusive attention, or it's a business idea that will fail miserably.

al2o3cr 10y ago

“It’s time for Act II: WINNING!” read the subject line of Peluos’s blog post Nothing says "high-quality leadership role-model" like Charlie Sheen.

talawahdotnet 10y ago
Could also be presidential quote. This timeline we are on is really weird.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Abed (from Community) rolled the dice wrong and we're on the second darkest timeline. I say second darkest because I believe there is a timeline where Trump would have started WW3 already.
  - randomguy23 10y ago
    The timeline where Hillary became President has already been ended. so yeah, maybe second.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

It worked out ever so well for Yahoo when Mayer did it so surely it'll work for IBM who has two orders of magnitude more employees...actually, perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations?

brational 10y ago
> perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations? That's the only explanation that makes sense.
- markgavalda 10y ago
  Why not simply fire those who they don't want to work with anymore? They're clearly used to do that at IBM and it would be much more controlled and cost effective.
  - GoToRO 10y ago
    They don't know who those people are :)
  - spcelzrd 10y ago
    You have to pay them to leave. You have to endure the publicity of large scale layoffs. This way, you are progressive, agile, and team oriented.
  - halbritt 10y ago
    In a large bureaucratic corporation, individuals are never "fired". They are "managed out". Check out the book Corporate Confidential.
  - rad_gruchalski 10y ago
    Because the cost of firing (dismissing) someone depends on where they have their contract. It might be zero cost in the US but the US is not the World. In Europe it would cost them tons of money to remove hundreds of jobs in a single swipe. OTOH, let people leave, no cost for them.
- gspetr 10y ago
  > That's the only explanation that makes sense. It does not have to make sense, could simply be a case of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor IBM could be a place where you just might encounter a pointy-haired boss from Dilbert.

pm90 10y ago

Disclosure: I'm a developer at IBM, but not speaking in official capacity. The comment here is completely personal. I went through this article and it seems like a lot of FUD. The line to note is: > Though not every department at IBM will be asked to colocate, many will. So yes, some departments have been "asked" to colocate. However, AFAIK nobody is being "forced". My team lead was asked to colocate but decided to stay where they are because of personal reasons (family). Speaking generally, I've had incredibly flexible hours, more so than at any other place I've worked so far (and I have worked at some of the "hip" places). Anyways, the headline itself seems truly sensationalist.

danso 10y ago
So IBM employees who refuse the company's formal request to colocate shouldn't be nervous about their status in the medium to long-term future?
- geodel 10y ago
  I agree. I think this is first step to separate out people who are unwilling to relocate. Next they will look at the work they are doing, if deemed non-critical I assume they will be first to go.
  - pm90 10y ago
    I mean, isn't that the case with any job? So sure, this might be an extra consideration when the time for layoffs comes around. My intention was not saying that nothing changed; emphasis on colocation is definitely a real thing. But IBM is not "ending remote work", as the headline says (it should be changed to the actual article title, which is more reasonable). It is most certainly allowed.
    - geodel 10y ago
      True, it is with any job. I still think it will be good filter for people who think IBM job is critical for them and family vs family and location is critical than IBM job. I agree IBM will most likely lose good remote workers but for company of IBM size individual super performers are not critical to their financial well being.

codingdave 10y ago

This isn't universal - a good friend of mine works for a team that is getting shipped off to IBM as part of a merger, and told to apply for the new IBM jobs if they want to keep working there. Ignoring the ugliness of that situation for the moment, he specifically asked about this news of remote work ending as it relates to how coding jobs would be impacted, and was told that the jobs he was applying for were intended to remain remote. All the news I have seen has been about the marketing team, and my story is just one team, so I have no real idea what the big picture is, but it seems to be more nuanced than what we are reading about in the news.

rch 10y ago
He should get that in writing.
hubb 10y ago
it might be that way while the company is run by ibm as a subsidiary, but my bet is the exception will end once they're full 'blue-washed'
simpleProMan123 10y ago
Every time I've found myself needing to ask, or had teammates who needed to ask the question "Is my job safe beyond the next month?" the answer has been "no."

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

alistproducer2 10y ago

Marissa Mayer did the same thing shortly after getting to Yahoo. I think the results there speak for themselves. There's never a case where a move like this will boost morale or attract/keep top talent. IMO moves like this are all about showing dominance and being a "person of action." It's corporate politics showmanship at the expense of results.

devopsproject 10y ago
> I think the results there speak for themselves 151% stock increase? Nearly double market cap?
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  are you seriously arguing Mayer's tenure was a success? Every major decision she had her fingerprints on (sumly, tumblr, etc) turned out to be massive, expensive failures. Lots of external factors go into stock price so I would argue stock price alone is not a good indicator of leadership.
  - devopsproject 10y ago
    I'm no fan of hers but I think she failed at an impossible task and could have done a lot worse.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  I can't actually tell if you're kidding. Forgetting whatever made up number Wall St. has assigned as Yahoo's "worth" they've gone down in flames completely as an organization. I don't judge a business by the stock ticker, I judge one by their products.
- leogiertz 10y ago
  Yahoo had a negative valuation if you removed their stake in Alibaba.
  - 10y ago

aantix 10y ago

When I went to sign up for Watson's API services, I had to allow for third party cookies just to enter my payment information. It was a pain just trying to dig through Chrome to allow this, but I wonder how many of their potential customers just punt on that point alone. For one of their flagship products, it's been an average experience at best.

zzalpha 10y ago

What I find a bit odd is that this is ostensibly about becoming more innovative. But does anyone really believe that major strategic business and product innovation occurs at the level of the individual contributors and teams who will be affected by this change? I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.

pm90 10y ago
> I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office. I think you are severely discounting the advantages of having people nearby/ in the same office. I'm not against working remotely, but personally do prefer a mix between working in the office and WFH. Its a lot easier to whiteboard designs and explain concepts. Its easy to ask a question and get an answer. There's also the other aspect of building a shared culture and getting to know your coworkers. That promotes a sense of comraderie so that when e.g. someone on the team has to take time off, there is a deadline for a deliverable or there is a service outage, the team works much more quickly and cohesively to solve problems. This also allows a better division of labor and I've seen this lead to many innovations as one person on the team focuses exclusively for a small time on solving a problem.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  None of which addresses my point. I'm not talking about innovation in the small, where a dev comes up with a clever new bit of user experience or a snazzy new algorithm. That stuff is nice but it's incremental. I'm talking strategic innovation, the stuff that makes or breaks big companies like IBM when they're struggling to compete in 2017. I would never claim there aren't advantages to co-located engineers. But I struggle to believe that one of those advantages is big picture innovation as implied by the article.

padobson 10y ago

A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort. I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do something new. Our businesses are shrinking, so let's try something new: make our employees less productive. Despite the positive spin the writer puts on the plan, to me it seems like the death throes of past-their-prime companies. And based on what others have said in these comments, the change is mostly affecting marketing employees. I'd say co-location is a pet tactic of the writer, without any real evidence that remote work is anything but progress. If a job can be done remotely, it should be done remotely.

wcummings 10y ago
> Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. Downsizing this way means people with kids or other obligations that make controlling your own schedule convenient are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. FTFY.
- geodel 10y ago
  You haven't really fixed much. I personally know quite a few people where work from home is basically another word for coasting or taking care of personal stuff while logged into company's system. And since many of them are hardly motivated for technical work it is not going to be easy to get another job with similar compensation along with WFH facility.
  - throw2016 10y ago
    I am sure many of us know or have known people who browse facebook, twitter and youtube at work all day. Anecdotal evidence or the actions of of a tiny minority is hardly helpful to any meaningful discussion and can be used to 'close down' any initiative.

geodel 10y ago

I have known many people who work in companies like Oracle, IBM etc where there is consulting at client location and then report at designated office. Generally reporting at designated office is very lax and people either are at client site or just stay at home. I wonder if tightening remote work requirement is for these people too. Lately at traditional IT companies even temporarily non-billable resources are increasingly being scrutinized for their output.

cwilkes 10y ago

I'm not sure how you attract new people to work for a company with 19 straight quarters of declining sales. Pinky swear that they will turn around this time?

kazinator 10y ago

Some thirty years ago I heard a joke from a friend's dad (employee of IBM) that it stands for "I've Been Moved". So this is just "IBM Classic" showing through the modern varnish.

gspetr 10y ago
They've come a long way since the 1930s: https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/tripping-through-ibms-astonishingly-insane-1937-corporate-songbook/ https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/tripping-through-ib...

dbg31415 10y ago

> In a video message, Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained the “only one recipe I know for success.” Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: “really creative and inspiring locations.” Why is this news coming from the CMO? Anyone know?

cwilkes 10y ago
I had to read the article multiple times as I thought the same thing. One paragraph mentions that the CMO is only talking about the marketing org, but that the sentiment is repeated elsewhere in the company. #winning

gibbitz 10y ago

If co-location is so great, why are they in six different offices? Call a layoff a layoff. I guess they avoid paying severance if you quit because you live in Idaho.

redm 10y ago

Remote work has many benefits, but it's not all upside. Possibly IBM saw the successes they had by co-locating the Watson, Marketing and Health squads compared and decided there was a lot of productivity being lost.

sklivvz1971 10y ago

Today, in the "companies that treat people like things" section we talk about IBM -- a company that routinely fires thousands of people. Today, the enlightened company is planning to relocate or dismiss the rest of their workforce, in the hope to change the company from the inventor and champion of all-that-is-waterfall to "agile". All with a straight face.

jmcdiesel 10y ago

IBM is so weird. I haven't worked for them, but I work with 2 former IBM Engineers in Austin... both of them say the same weird things.. like, you can't get two monitors (when one asked, he was declined, then his boss pulled an old CRT out of a closet and gave it too him... a 640x480 CRT from what must have been 184 years ago) ... And other weird tales that just seem antithetical to a tech company..

mvdwoord 10y ago
IBM is beyond weird. Source: I spent about 14 of the past 20 years there (as a contractor) in the Global Services division. But for all the weirdness, and downright idiocy at times, they were always truly supportive of working from home. None of those funny remarks or anything either with coworkers. At least in the teams I have worked in, everybody was always valued on output, not "visibility" or any of that typical business bullshitbingo. Of course, speaking from a technical role. Seen plenty of classic behaviour in management. Having said that, I could write books about the complete Twilight Zone that is IBM Services. Don't worry, I'll stick with writing invoices in stead ;)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
krona 10y ago
IBM isn't a tech company. It's a brand with an impressive marketing department that sells experiences, not products. The rest of it (the stuff you don't see unless you get close enough) is an accumulation of spaghetti acquired in an ad hoc and aimless fashion.
- coredog64 10y ago
  At my previous employer, we were evaluating solutions from IBM, TIBCO, and Oracle. The IBM solution was cheaper and met our needs. In the end, our VP nixed them with the statement of "I don't really want to support IBM software." The feeling was unanimous across the team.

briandear 10y ago

Whatever salary they're paying remoters now isn't going to be enough to live in NY or San Fran without a significant quality of life cut. And basically they get extra "work" out of you for free -- time spent commuting. So 40 hours a week becomes 50 hours a week assuming a 1-hour commute. Is it me or is this move seemingly initiated by female executives that want to project power in order to compensate for the perception that they are less dedicated to work because of their sex? Given a sample size of two, I would avoid working for anyone named Melissa.

andrenotgiant 10y ago

> Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained the “only one recipe I know for success.” Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: “really creative and inspiring locations.” That must be the same secret recipe that quartered[1] GILT's value in less than 10 years! [1] Gilt Groupe at one point valued at $1B, sold to HBC for $250M - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilt_Groupe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilt_Groupe

S_A_P 10y ago

IBM is a failed services company. Ive been a subcontractor for 2 projects run by IBM. Both fiascos of mismanagement. The project management at IBM had an incredible churn rate. On the first project, they were kicked off for completely failing to deliver. The second project had them completely marginalized. The sad thing is that it was another "big 4" consulting company that took over, who was only slightly less incompetent. I really have trouble understanding the big 4 consulting model. It mainly seems to consist of the following: 1) plant 2-300% of the consultants on site that are necessary 2) create an enormous amount of power point slides that look impressive but mainly say nothing 3) outsource the real work to India or cheap labor 4) deliver 25% of the requirements in 300% of the time

mcguire 10y ago
I was a "subcontractor" on 4 major IBM internal projects. All failed due to bad management. Then IBM became a services company. IBM has been failing for a long time.
hnbroseph 10y ago
the model is mostly around slick sales people scoring fat contracts from largely non-technical corporate bureaucrats. the rest is just trying to deliver as little as possible, as cheaply as possible, without outright violating the contract. real shame to apply the flimflam business consulting ethos to the it consulting arena, but it is the way of things.
homakov 10y ago
What kind of consulting was that? Anything about development?
- S_A_P 10y ago
  Yes. I write custom code for several commodity trading risk management software platforms along with integration, implementation, interfaces, etc.
  - homakov 10y ago

archeantus 10y ago

I am remote, and have been for the last 3.5 yrs. As a software developer I find that the times I am least productive are when I need to work in an office. It is loud and distractions are everywhere. People stop by your desk to chat and ask for things, you inevitably get roped into ping-pong or foosball games, you take way longer lunches because that is what everyone else seems to be doing. The list goes on. I am always glad to get home from the office so I can focus and get work done in peace. It may not be the case for all roles, but for software development I think (motivated and diligent) remote workers are way more productive, and can provide a much better ROI for their employers.

snockerton 10y ago

For affected IBMers... find a new remote gig! https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job

deboboy 10y ago

This sort of 'cultural' double down is why I left. There's some talented people there - I'm thankful for everything I learned from them - but the culture is too rigid for creative exploration and [most importantly] discovery.

bitmapbrother 10y ago

IBM is not ending remote work. They're laying off thousands of North American workers every quarter and sending those jobs remotely to India.

jps359 10y ago

"the severance payment will be equal to one month’s base salary, the standard at IBM." Worth keeping in mind that this is the new policy as of about a year ago (they changed it before the big waves of layoffs last year). Before the change you would get a week for every 6 months worked, up to 23 weeks.

pinaceae 10y ago

HP did the same thing a couple years ago. Main reason is downsizing, easiest way to thin the herd. At that size, HR is just a spreadsheet exercise, quality of the individual employees does not factor in. Of course this will not affect their "remote" workforce in India, this is about the high-pay western markets.

homakov 10y ago

Unrelated: Are there people in the world who prefer spending 8 hours in the office vs 8 hours wherever they want (office OR home OR cafe)?

stkrzysiak 10y ago
I know someone who took an office gig after 5+ yrs of remote due to lack of the 'office experience'. He's a sane, smart guy, I think he just got tired of being home all the time. That or his kids reached the obnoxious age.

mathattack 10y ago

It's easy to forget that IBM is in the share buyback business. They're not a growing technology power. They have Watson, which isn't enough to save them. They can't invest money wisely, so every year they cut headcount and return some money to shareholders. It's the orderly returning of money to shareholders from a company that doesn't need investment anymore. So why should this company offer perks to compete with Google or a startup? They only need a shrinking subset of lifers to keep the lights on. If you want to telecommute, find a place that specializes in it.

bigmattystyles 10y ago

/IBM employee rant begin To me, the fact that IBM has for years encouraged remote work, been affirmatively OK with people moving hundreds, even thousands of miles from their nearest co-location center to then yanking this policy and forcing employees to decide whether to move in a short amount of time makes this, in my mind, a thinly-veiled downsizing effort. Imagine; for years, your department in is NY state, but you've been told it's totally cool to move to Colorado and work from home. In fact, IBM exclaims how it's good for the company because it saves space and money! You build your family's life there, then all the sudden - you have a month to decide to relocate to NY state (sell your house, change your kids' school, etc) or quit with a measly package. They won't even allow you to go to the nearby IBM office in Colorado because your group is based in NY state. I know employment is at-will, and what IBM is doing is perfectly legal. It doesn't mean it doesn't stink.

justin66 10y ago
> then all the sudden - you have a month to decide to relocate to NY state Is that actually happening to you? pm90 below indicated that IBM wasn't doing this.
- bigmattystyles 10y ago
  Not me personally, definitely to others I work with - there's been hints of no enforcement until later this year but nothing official. Edit: And as PM90 said, it does seem to be only some departments. PM90 said the article creates FUD, but I think you could argue IBM is doing that to its employees with this.
jps359 10y ago
Yep... I know people who were affected in the same way you described -- encouraged to work remotely, so they bought houses in other states years ago, and then told 3 months in advance that they would need to return to the office. Of the people I know, one chose retirement, a few chose to leave, one chose to relocate, one was allowed to stay remote.

menckenjr 10y ago

This sounds like an attempt to graft a small-company or startup atmosphere onto the dying trunk of a behemoth.

joshstrange 10y ago

I use to think that remote work was goal I should be aiming for but after have a few friends did it and I thought more about it I've decided I would hate it. On the surface it sounds great and while I fully support working from home a few times a month I can't support any more than that. One of my good friends that did it has an interesting take, he said that since he was more introverted he thought he was perfect for remote work when in fact it made him miserable. His dad worked remotely for a large part of his life but was an extrovert. He concluded that contrary to what may seem like common sense introverts do worse in remote work because the office is where they get a majority of their human interaction while extroverts are going to make that happen regardless of if they go into an office every day. I have no experience with working from home for a long period of time but I know calling into meetings is the worst and that there are a TON of decisions/conversations that you get ZERO input on (most of the time you don't even know they happened) when you are remote. I have never been so happy that I didn't get a remote job I interviewed for a few years ago. As much as I hate companies giving a perk and then taking it away I can't help but think this is the right move for IBM. PS: Yes HipChat/Slack/Jira/GitLab/GitHub/etc/etc/etc can help with this but you are fooling yourself if you think that the people in the office are going to record every single interaction/conversation/etc of note. Remote-only teams might be an exception but even then you really do lose the ability to roll over to co-workers chair and have an impromptu conversation.