IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) has issued more layoff notices, marking the third round of IBM job cuts so far in 2016, according to multiple reports.
According to the News & Observer:
"A new wave of layoffs has struck IBM sites around the globe, including the sprawling campus in Research Triangle Park that makes the technology giant one of the area’s largest employers, according to a former IBM employee and union organizer who tracks the company’s job-cutting efforts."
Research Triangle Park is a well-known IT hub in North Carolina.
Watching IBM Layoffs In 2016
Chatter about the alleged job cuts surfaced on Watching IBM, a third-party website that reports on job cuts and worker conditions at the company. Lee Conrad, a former IBMer, oversees the site.
IBM has not publicly commented about this latest round of alleged layoffs. But the company has previously stated multiple times that it is "rebalancing" the workforce -- hiring in fast-growth areas like cognitive computing, cloud services, mobile and security. Critics allege that the company has even made some cuts in those areas.
IBM's revenues have fallen for 17 consecutive quarters as customers shift IT spending from hardware, software and consulting services toward cloud services and SaaS applications. Company revenues in those strategic areas certainly have been growing, but some critics wonder if the company's cloud business is expanding quickly enough.
IBM's Evolving Partner Program
On the channel front, the company in early 2016 overhauled its PartnerWorld partner program. But some attendees at the company's partner conference were still lamenting IBM's decision to sell its x86 server business to Lenovo back in 2014.
More recent partner efforts, focused heavily on cloud ISVs, have gained some traction over the past year -- though Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are widely considered the leading public cloud providers.
IBM PartnerWorld 2017 is set for February in Las Vegas.
