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They’ve been doing it for so long I’m surprised they have any jobs left to axe. Sam Palmisano skinned IBM then too a knife to its belly and gutted it. All in t

They’ve been doing it for so long I’m surprised they have any jobs left to axe. Sam Palmisano skinned IBM then too a knife to its belly and gutted it. All in the name of his “Roadmap 2010” which was a plan to double the share price by 2015. So basically the pharaoh said “fuck it, we need a new pyramid. Get the whips out and all worker carcasses are to be dump on the left please”. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/05/30/why-ibm-is-in-decline/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/05/30/why-ibm... Edit: roadmap 2010 not 2015

justinclift 2y ago
Followed by Ginni Rometty who continued the trend through to 2020. She was named the runner up worst CEO of 2014 by The Motley Fool: • https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/13/the-worst-tech-ceos-of-2014.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/13/the-worst-... And was responsible for "22 consecutive quarters of revenue decline between 2012 and the summer of 2017": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty#Industry_reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty#Industry_recepti... Not a place of growth for anything other than financial engineering. :(
- holografix 2y ago
  I mean she was terrible but in her defense Palmisano tossed her a hospital pass and walked away with $250M into the mega-rich sunset. The quality of work coming from the offshored teams was significantly worse and the cost to the end customer certainly didn’t get reduced accordingly.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    She had years to right that ship though, rather than continue the slide. :(
- skipants 2y ago
  During a tech bull run… that’s pretty impressive
nineteen999 2y ago
Meh. After I finished my stint at Big Blue, they outsourced my entire midrange (UNIX) team which supported a large Australian bank to a foreign provider. 2 years later I had recruitment consultants calling me multiple times a week to get me to "come back" to IBM as the offshoring had been a disaster for the customer. And this was despite of me having a lifetime IBM ban for flipping off my manager's manager on the way out. No way, no time, no thank you, no how.
- gtirloni 2y ago
  The rumors of bans were always circulating when I worked at IBM. I never heard that at any other company. It's bizarre.
  - Gud 2y ago
    Perhaps few other companies has (ex)employees who feel the need to flip their superiors the bird?
    - nineteen999 2y ago
      The reality was that I already knew from stories I'd heard that they were terrible with renewing contracts - they always waited until your contract had expired, and then would have an expectation that after a few weeks of unemployment you'd be desperate to re-sign and come back. Knowing this I had another job already lined up ready to go as soon as my contract ended. If you treat staff like cattle, you reap what you sow.
canucker2016 2y ago
Financial shenanigans started with Palmisano's predecessor, Lou Gerstner, the first outside IBM CEO. Reading about IBM CEOs, before and after Gerstner, the CEO was an IBM-lifer who came up through sales/marketing. Though Gina Rometty started in tech-related area at IBM. The current CEO has the deepest tech background of any IBM CEO. The company has pivoted towards cloud, esp. hybrid cloud. IBM has exited many hardware/software segments to concentrate on consulting and being the goto for outsourced IT departments since the dot-com crash. They've tried goosing sales by touting AI a couple times before the current wave - Deep Blue and Watson, which didn't have much long term impact revenue-wise. They've gone after the cloud, esp. hybrid cloud, with recent acquisitions, esp. RedHat.

justinclift 2y ago

Followed by Ginni Rometty who continued the trend through to 2020. She was named the runner up worst CEO of 2014 by The Motley Fool: • https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/13/the-worst-tech-ceos-of-2014.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/13/the-worst-... And was responsible for "22 consecutive quarters of revenue decline between 2012 and the summer of 2017": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty#Industry_reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginni_Rometty#Industry_recepti... Not a place of growth for anything other than financial engineering. :(

holografix 2y ago
I mean she was terrible but in her defense Palmisano tossed her a hospital pass and walked away with $250M into the mega-rich sunset. The quality of work coming from the offshored teams was significantly worse and the cost to the end customer certainly didn’t get reduced accordingly.
- justinclift 2y ago
  She had years to right that ship though, rather than continue the slide. :(
skipants 2y ago
During a tech bull run… that’s pretty impressive

nineteen999 2y ago

Meh. After I finished my stint at Big Blue, they outsourced my entire midrange (UNIX) team which supported a large Australian bank to a foreign provider. 2 years later I had recruitment consultants calling me multiple times a week to get me to "come back" to IBM as the offshoring had been a disaster for the customer. And this was despite of me having a lifetime IBM ban for flipping off my manager's manager on the way out. No way, no time, no thank you, no how.

gtirloni 2y ago
The rumors of bans were always circulating when I worked at IBM. I never heard that at any other company. It's bizarre.
- Gud 2y ago
  Perhaps few other companies has (ex)employees who feel the need to flip their superiors the bird?
  - nineteen999 2y ago
    The reality was that I already knew from stories I'd heard that they were terrible with renewing contracts - they always waited until your contract had expired, and then would have an expectation that after a few weeks of unemployment you'd be desperate to re-sign and come back. Knowing this I had another job already lined up ready to go as soon as my contract ended. If you treat staff like cattle, you reap what you sow.

canucker2016 2y ago

Financial shenanigans started with Palmisano's predecessor, Lou Gerstner, the first outside IBM CEO. Reading about IBM CEOs, before and after Gerstner, the CEO was an IBM-lifer who came up through sales/marketing. Though Gina Rometty started in tech-related area at IBM. The current CEO has the deepest tech background of any IBM CEO. The company has pivoted towards cloud, esp. hybrid cloud. IBM has exited many hardware/software segments to concentrate on consulting and being the goto for outsourced IT departments since the dot-com crash. They've tried goosing sales by touting AI a couple times before the current wave - Deep Blue and Watson, which didn't have much long term impact revenue-wise. They've gone after the cloud, esp. hybrid cloud, with recent acquisitions, esp. RedHat.