back to article Union warns of second round of 'massive' layoffs at IBM in Europe

IBM staffers in Europe face another wave of deep cuts, according to a top union official. Marc Born, secretary of Big Blue's European Works Council, has warned a "second massive restructuring" effort at the company will kick off in 2016. This comes six weeks after the IT giant announced a round of layoffs in late January – its …

  1. AMBxx Silver badge

    Where next?

    IBM sold off their hardware divisions to concentrate on services. Now they're reducing services. Soon there'll be nothing left.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Where next?

      They still have a big computer that can win enough money on quiz shows to keep the company afloat.

      1. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

        Re: Where next?

        Didn't they also have one that played Poker? I think there is still some money to be made in that racket if you can play at a decent level - although I'm not sure if there is a rule where you have to be able to physically handle your hole cards.

        I'm not sure a bunch of POWER750's could manage that.

        1. Gordon 10
          Terminator

          Re: Where next?

          Cant they repurpose one of those backup tape carousel thingies?

          A machine can win at jeopardy but cant hold its own cards? Something must be done!

          Alternatively they could automate one of those card shuffling machines you see at casino's with the added bonus of being able to program it to "blow its wad" at the fleshies in the event of a bad beat.

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: Where next?

      Actually, most of IBM's money comes from investments and selling financial services these days.

      The beancounters and bankers have taken over.

  2. Whitter
    Flame

    Good for the goose...

    Companies that treat their staff badly deserve to be badly treated by their staff.

    All of them.

    1. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

      Re: Good for the goose...

      Whilst (being an ex-IBM'er myself) I have every sympathy for those in the firing line, I'd not agree that IBM are treating them badly per se; yes, they are treating them to the absolute minimum letter of HR requirements - but then again, IBM has been on a very well publicized downwards spiral for the whole of this decade and ALL employees should have been cognicent that this is what the new IBM policy looks like since Ginny took the reins and subsequently they should have been be prepared for that worst case rather than living on feather beds continuing to believe and expect that IBM is still the loyal "job for life" organisation that it was back in the 70's and 80's.

      I left IBM in 2005 and these winds of change were already starting to blow back then.

  3. Youngone Silver badge

    I'm not sure what IBM is for anymore. They used to have some great people who had technical skills that were of use to their customers.

    I think they exist to sell stuff for more than Dell do, which means not many sales, I'm guessing.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The IBM Business plan

    IBM's business plan seems to be to buy up the IT services of other companies and then rip them to shreds to make maximum profit from the deal for minimum service.

    The help desk service goes to a country with much cheaper wages, the Server data goes up into their cloud service, minimal infrastructure staff required for network configuration, and contract staff for desktop support.

    If the Company decides at the potential contract cut-off period they don't want IBM to continue (as the service has been so shoddy) - they are stuffed. They will have to start from scratch getting IT staff and finding another cloud service provider to host the data.

  5. PeterM42
    Unhappy

    Yet another meaning for the letters IBM.....

    It's Being Miserly

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