poor business decisions in light of the move toward cloud. Continuing to focus on high-cost services and proprietary large-scale systems while the rest of the industry moved toward commoditization and open source-based enterprise solutions has left IBM falling behind. This is a measure to cut costs, yes, but it lies almost solely on the back of poor product decisions and IBM's inability to adapt to the modern computing landscape.

Morale at IBM is horrific, too, and has been for years. If these people being RIF'd are anything like my wife, a few of my closest friends, and countless acquaintances who've worked for Big Blue, they'll be jumping for joy at getting a fat payoff package and the opportunity to work elsewhere. Most firms like mine are desperate for experienced software engineers right now, so most of these people won't have trouble finding new work quickly.

Tim