IBM is trying pull the wool over everyone's eyes...
Its going to be costly for IBM to shift EU jobs out of the EU and they'll do it only if they don't think that there will be a customer backlash.
Here in the states, customers who are not already locked in to long term contracts are starting to put the squeeze on IBM. Lets face it. If you're a customer and you just found out that your local support staff's work is now being done in India, you don't think that you'll want to renegotiate the contracts?
The only ones happy are going to be IBM's legal team since they'll have job security with all of the contract issues either going to court or arbitration. They'll point to the T's and C's and offer IBM's assurances that there will be no slip up in the SLAs that were in the contract and that IBM will make them 'whole'. (Or is that hole as in a big black hole sucking all of the customer's money out of their pocket books?)
Sorry but IBM senior management don't have a clue. They're just fattening their nest egg before they jump ship when Sam retires in the next two years or so.
Anyone who's doing business with IBM needs to re-evaluate their T's and C's and consider doing business with someone else who isn't going to shift the workforce out of country.
With respect to federal stimulus monies, IBM supposedly is going to have two new sites in the US. (Iowa and MI). Care to bet that they'll use L1s and H1Bs?
The flame isn't for the Reg, but for IBM.
Bad corporate policy shouldn't be rewarded, right AIG?