Big Blue : We're Back!

[Brett_Tabke]

[ecommercetimes.com...]

Signaling that 2004 likely will be a year of solid growth for the technology industry, IBM has raised its hiring forecast, saying it plans to hire 15,000 new employees in the coming year.

[bcolflesh]

It's good news for non-US citizens. IBM says they "might" hire up to 5000 in the US, but nothing has materialized yet.

[PhraSEOlogy]

I worked for IBM Hursley Park in the late 80's and the message then was "Improve productivity and lower costs or die!" I guess things have finally turned around. Perhaps all my old mainframe skills may come back into fashion. VM/CMS anyone?

[txbakers]

Yes, that's great news for Mumbai and Ireland.

Didn't IBM just recently announce that they were moving 10,000 jobs to India and elsewhere.

[bcolflesh]

Looks more like Bangalore and Beijing from other articles on the subject. The "5000" in the US are the former managers of the 10000 jobs that were shipped over there - they'll just be getting laterals to "new" jobs. ;)

[martinibuster]

>>It's good news for non-US citizens.

The world economy is here to stay. Better get used to it.

What does IBM build nowadays, anyway? What will these offshore employees be creating? I went to the IBM website but couldn't get past the jargon.

[Brett_Tabke]

Duh - umm the I in IBM does stand for International.

Just amazing though, that after all the beatings IBM has taken, they can be adding more people now.

[bcolflesh]

What will these offshore employees be creating?

1. Hardware
2. Software
3. Semiconductors

IBMs bread and butter since the beginning.

[txbakers]

I always thought IBM products were the most reliable.

Our company is primarily an AS/400 provider for the oil and gas industry, and you can't beat the iSeries for reliability, etc.

I'm glad for them. I guess I should get used to the "global" economy, as long as my job doesn't disappear over there.

[Romeo]

Hi phraSEOlogy,

> VM/CMS anyone?

It is no longer VM/CMS, it is z/VM now and is needed to host all those zLinuxes on the zSeries mainframes ...
I once administered a classic VM/XA and VM/ESA long time ago and never thought it would ever come back, when we dumped it exactly 10 years ago ...

Regards,
R.

[andy_boyd]

Here's hoping IBM will plough some of their job investment into their Fishkill Fab and speed up development of their PPC chips!

[thehittmann]

Australian telecomunications just lost 1500 jobs to india

[Hollywood]

Ingram Micro (NYSE:IM) is outsourcing to India in a large way says the crow. Also just last week, more layoffs, this is still going (Layoffs) since 2000.

~ Hollywood

[coopster]

Didn't IBM just recently announce that they were moving 10,000 jobs to India and elsewhere.

I read that, too. But it was 5,000. 30,000 within the next two years.
Source: h**p://www.iseriesnetwork.com/news/nwn/story.cfm?ID=17828&channel=home

>>you can't beat the iSeries for reliability, etc.

I'll second that. It is an extraordinary platform.

Just amazing though, that after all the beatings IBM has taken, they can be adding more people now.

This will hold true for most (solid) businesses. Consider MS and the beatings they take. Yet the wheels keep turning...

[HughMungus]

Didn't IBM just recently announce that they were moving 10,000 jobs to India and elsewhere.

Not only that, but, many companies are outsourcing to IBM's services, which is outsourcing outside the US. Pathetic.

[andy_boyd]

IMHO it isn't great news to hear that jobs are being out sourced overseas, but when in a market / profit driven economy big business needs to keep cutting costs. And if that means out sourcing, then so be it. However, we have yet to see the negative impact this will have on our own economy ... and I would expect that impact to be quite large and rather painful for Joe Bloggs.

[shaadi]

All US companies are now having Indian people with American faces :)

[jim_w]

Actually I heard on Lou Dobbs Money show on CNN, that Dell just brought back their customer service from India because customers were complaining that they could not understand the CS reps. Could be a case of India running out of good English speaking people, or Dell selling to a lot of people where English is their second language.

I just published an article on how important communications are in a ‘world economy’. I guess the good news, if any, is it could be a perception that English will become the World’s language 20 years from now.

[Go2]

I worked for IBM Hursley Park

Nice place, I just got back from a 2 day visit. Pretty large design center with lead responsibility for MQSeries and CICS. What struck me was how remote and secluded it was, right in the middle of the english countryside (about 100 km southwest of London).

The world economy is here to stay. Better get used to it.

Definitely. And the Internet made it happen.