14 DAY TRIAL // IBM has always been a powerful and great brand in the technology industry, both on the consumer front and the enterprise/industrial sector, but it seems that even such giants aren't completely protected from financial troubles.
IBM recently sold its x86 server business to Lenovo, as part of its ongoing efforts to reorganize its business.
IBM isn't doing badly, exactly, since it was never fully reliant on PCs, or a specific sort of PCs, so it isn't exactly faltering, marketing-wise.
That, at least, puts it in a better position than, say, Acer, whose operations have been slipping ever since netbooks, its bread and butter, crashed and burned due to the rapid ascent of tablets.
Still, IBM isn't doing that well either, and it wants to become a bit more specialized itself, in cloud, analytics, and cognitive computing.
This would, presumably, protect its business from further damage as consumers continue to shift interest away from PCs.
Servers are a different matter, but IBM sold them anyway because it apparently doesn't want to deal in small things anymore.
And while x86 servers aren't as “small” as desktops and laptops, they are quite minor compared to cloud and supercomputing.
Sadly, all these business changes are taking their toll on the company, or rather its workforce. Now that Lenovo has bought the x86 business arm, the company's workers there will probably be laid off. And they aren't the only ones.
Though it sounds cold, cutting losses usually means, for a company, the reduction on money-consuming workforce. Thus, IBM could lay off more than 25% of all the workers from this hardware division, otherwise known as the Systems and Technology group, that produces servers.
Fortunately, not everyone will get shafted. While many of those affected will have to find employment elsewhere on their own, some won't, because IBM's cloud computing and Watson outfits (supercomputing as it were) are creating additional jobs.
That's what spokesperson Doug Shelton said anyway, in a recent exchange with CNet.
There probably won't be as many openings as there are layoffs, but every little bit helps. Sure, it would be great if we lived in an ideal world where having a job or personal wealth wouldn't be necessary to also have a good livelihood, but that is not the case.
For those interested in IBM's deal with Lenovo, the latter is buying the former's (low-end) server business for $2.3 billion / €1.69 billion.