Category Archives: IBM

Robert X. Cringely and IBM!

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From time to time I read Robert X. Cringely’s column, and though I mostly do not agree with him, I find what he say interesting. In his latest column about his predictions for 2008, I found this interesting and since I work for IBM and Global Services, it is a bit worrying.

6) IBM will have several quarters of bad earnings, will try to sell Global Services to private equity firms who don’t really want it, then end up financing the transaction itself to save Sam Palmisano’s job.

Global Services (GS) in IBM is made up of Global Technology Services (GTS) and Global Business Services (GBS).  Now I have to wonder whether Mr Cringely is talking about the whole of GS or only GTS or GBS in particular.  As far as I know, over the past couple of quarters and years, GTS was the best performing division in IBM and in general outperformed all other divisions.  So I have to wonder why Mr Cringely makes a prediction like this?  He does not say on what he based his predictions, so to me it just looks like stabs in the dark.

As we all know, services is a growing trend in the IT industry and more and more companies turn to some form of outsourcing of their non-core business.  This is what GS does and I cannot see that IBM would ever get rid off it.  IBM is acquiring companies everyday that supports their Services business.  What will IBM do with this companies if and when they get rid of GS .. this just do not make sense.

Werk, fliek en die week wat was.

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Die week het begin met my wat moes besluit of ek ‘n nuwe werkaanbieding wat op my lessenaar geland het gaan aanvaar en of ek by IBM gaan bly.  Na gesprekke met menigte mense het ek besluit om by IBM te bly en nie die nuwe werksaanbod te aanvaar nie.  Dit was goed om te sien dat IBM bereid was om iets te doen om my te behou en dit laat mens goed voel.  Ek moet nog die ander maatskappy laat weet dat ek nie hul aanbod aanvaar nie.

Gepraat van werk.  Donderdag het IBM se Kaapse kantoor hul jaareind funksie gehad.  Dit was iewers teen Tafelberg op in die Tafelberg Nasionale Park.  Ek bly al so lank hier in Kaapstad en het nie eens van die plek geweet nie.  Hier is ‘n foto wat ek geneem het.
IBM yearend 2007-1 Foto geneem deur Marius Bock met Nokia N80

Gisteraand het ek Surfs Up gaan kyk en het dit terdee geniet.  Daarna gaan koffie drink by Coffee Junction in Tygervallei.  Hulle het “live entertainment” gehad en dit was nogal goed gewees.  Weet nie wie die ou was wat gesing het nie maar gehoor hy is ‘n polisieman wat sing in sy spaar tyd.  Hy is blykbaar elke tweede Saterdagaand by Coffee Junction.  Gaan loer gerus daar in na fliek.  By gesê, dit was omtrent die enigste plek wat enige lewe gehad het in Tygervallei na 10 uur.

The week that was.

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A while back I posted about Kimi that won the F1 championship or NOT.  McLaren appealed against the result of the Brazilian GP and the hearing was yesterday and McLaren’s appeal was rejected.  Kimi was then confirmed as F1 World Champion.  Congrats to Kimi and Ferrari for winning both the drivers and constructors titles.

On a personal front .. what a hectic week.  As mentioned earlier, I started a new job and what a hectic week.  I still had some stuff to handover from my previous engagement to  the person that is taking over from me so had to commute between Cape Town and Bellville a couple of times. Coming week will be more of the same and then things should start to get back to normal.  Good luck Margie with all the new stuff.  The new job is going as well as can be expected.  Attending lots of meetings and get to know a lot of new faces, names and roles.  A big plus is that it takes me now only about 10 minutes from my house to the office.

This all did not leave much time for social life.  I will try to get some relaxing time in over this weekend by going to brunch this morning to catch up with a friend.

My son is off to Stellenbosch varsity next year and he did not make it into residence so we are now frantically looking for accommodation in Stellenbosch.  If anybody know of something decent and not to expensive then please either leave a comment or contact me via my contact page.

Here is a photo I took earlier this morning from my balcony.  What an amazing place I live in.
Sunrise 2
Image:  Marius Bock taken with Nokia N80

Start of a new experience.

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Those that are following this blog and also follow me on Facebook will have seen my status messages that says:: “moving on”.  What is this all about?

For the past 30 months or so, last 11 at IBM, I was responsible for delivery of Application Development for Safmarine as a customer.  Friday was my last day doing that and today I am starting a new experience.  I am still with IBM but will be moving onto a new customer which is Sanlam.

Also I will be moving out of Application Development into managing a team that support one of the production runtime environments at Sanlam.  This is much more an infrastructure/product support environment with new challenges.

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RSS update – 27 October 2007

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Tidbits from my RSS reader:

Table mountain

Kimi F1 champion or NOT & RSS feed update – 22 October 2007

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What a last Formula 1 GP held in Brazil yesterday.  Kimi won the race with Alonso 4th and Hamilton 7th.  This gave Kimi enough points to win the World Championship by 1 point.  But did he win?  There is some dispute about the fuel temperature of BMW Sauber and Williams.  These teams were cleared but I am sure that McLaren will appeal this.  If the appeal is successful then Hamilton will move up to forth and have enough points to take the championship.  Waiting with abated breath to see how this will pan out.

Onto my RSS feed tidbits:

The V&A waterfront in Cape Town with the bay and Blouberg in the distance:
V&A

RWC which we going to win and RSS update – 15 October 2007

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How great was the win against Argentina last night?  Next week we can give the Poms a lesson in rugby again.  So my prediction was not spot on but I really do not care who we play in the final.  The main thing is that we there and that we will win it.

I have eventually cleared out all the backed up RSS entries in my feed reader.  Here is some interesting tidbits:

With summer getting nearer and just being a patriotic South African and Cape Townian.  How can one not love this place.

IBM Patent, RWC and RSS feed update – 13 October 2007

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My own question on whether one can patent offshoring/outsourcing was sort off answered when IBM dropped the patent application on it.

Good luck to the Boks in their game against Argentina in the RWC tomorrow evening.  I just know they will win.  And my prediction for tonight, although not easy, is that France will go through to the final.  What a prospect to look forward to, SA vs France in the RWC final.  Who would have predicted that 2 months ago?

Now onto my RSS feed tidbits:

Amazing picture taken of a Solar Eclipse on the same time every evening.

Credit & Copyright: Tunc Tezel and Cenk E. Tezel

IBM: Can one patent offshoring of work?

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Well, IBM in the US think so. Via Slashdot I found this article.  As far as I know to patent something it need to be original work and no prior art should exist.  Surely IBM was not the first to come up with this concept, whether it be offshoring the work to India and any other country for that matter.

I quote from the patent application:

A method for identifying human-resource work content to outsource offshore of an organization. The method is provided on a computer readable medium and includes the steps of identifying at least one task being performed by an organization; associating each identified task with a functional group within a plurality of functional groups related to the organization; determining information about individual human resources spent on each task; determining task information about human resources spent on the plurality of tasks, the task information based on the determined information about individual human resources spent on each task; using the determined task information to determine a value of each task; and outsourcing tasks having a value lower than a predefined limit to at least one of offshore and to a low cost supplier.

 

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