These are dark days for Big Blue. And not just in terms of financial performance. Employee morale at IBM appears to be bottoming out too.
On Monday, IBM reported that its third-quarter profits had collapsed, that it was offloading its microchip business to GlobalFoundries, and that it had abandoned its "Roadmap 2015" goal of reaching $20 earnings per share by next year.
And now, this morning, a group of IBM workers has issued a statement excoriating that Roadmap (which some have been sardonically referring to as "Roadkill 2015"), saying it has done "enormous damage" to IBM and has made the company's work environment "toxic."
That story also notes that investors will have to wait till January for Rometty and her team to update IBM's outlook for next year, and it predicts that the company's best chance to succeed will be to focus on cloud-related products and services.
As another analyst puts it, "For IBM to really be successful going forward, Rometty and her team need to be successful creating an IBM that’s focused on the next generation of cloud spending. That’s where enterprises are moving, and they need to build a product and services strategy [based] on the cloud environment."
I'd add that to be successful going forward, those leaders also need to create an IBM that's focused on its current generation of employees. That's where enterprises are moving. They need to build a strategy that addresses the workers' environment, and their morale, and their confidence in the decision makers who will drawing up IBM's roadmaps in the future.
