There have been rumors for a few weeks about impending job cuts at IBM, and they’re coming down this week. I’ve heard from people I know within IBM (mostly the old FileNet organization, where I worked in 2000-01) that it’s hitting the software group pretty hard. If you check the Job Cut Status page on a site created by the Communications Workers of America (a part of AFL-CIO that appears to either represent or be trying to unionize IBMers in the US), you’ll see comments like this:
IBM ECM Labs – Costa Mesa, CA – at least 5 that I know of, at all levels. Rumor has it most if not all of the developers will be replaced by India.
Austin Texas, SWG, 28 people out of 45 cut. young and old, top and bottom performers. Never show me great 4Q numbers again. This company doesn’t care about anything anymore.
Got the call today – Mngr said Sales Ops lost 40% of total group.
By my counts about 800 software engineers are selected in the action. 330 Staff, 280 Advisory, 120 senior, and others.
The cuts in SWG are: 25% in Development and 35% in Marketing/ other.
And, most curiously:
my ibm office site is now blocking the alliance web page.
Caveat: most of these comments are made anonymously, so should be considered to be unsubstantiated rumors.
There are two weird things about this. First of all, IBM is completely silent about it so far, although they will have to issue some sort of press release soon as the news is leaking out all over the place. Second, they just announced healthy profits in the software group, which seems to be the group taking the biggest hit.
Microsoft is also starting the cuts: they announced today that they will be laying off up to 5,000 people in the next 18 months.