They layoff every quarter. Lierally. They just do not get much press. 10s of thousands over the years and no one knows or blinks.

Don't know where this number is from. I Believe there will be layoffs in first quarter, but it will not be so many. After getting another disappointing number, the management team has to come out something to "rescue" the company, there is no other way on the table right now, hence they need to adopt this common way.

If the number is correct, it means that there will be one out of four IBMers leaves. This will put IBM in danger immediately as there are many customers who need the support from IBM and IBM will definitely not be able to deliver the service needed timely. The management team has to consider about this if they are not fool enough.

Furthermore, if so many employees are laid off once, the company has to pay large amouts of leaving packages(13 weeks), this will put big pressure on the cash flow of the company in a short period.

One more thing, there is no apparant evidence from inside IBM yet on this large amount of layoffs. If there is, some people must have smelled it. Or is it a dawn of storm?

The employees which are most probably impacted are from the hardware division and GTS. SInce hardware has losed the battle to the Internet and Cloud. GTS has aroind half of the company's employees. Also, IBM Is reorgnize the company to expand to 13 business units and incorporate the GTS into each unit so that the service team can better cooperate with the lroduct teams. This might be another clue that GTS will be impacted heavily.

Frankly the management should be those who should be laid off. They have go far beyond the vision of IBM a few decades back. Now the only thing the management thinks is to make the Wall Street happy and forget their most valuable resource -- people. Employees get less incetives these recet years and are passive on what they ae doing, there are also large benefits cut. These all make emplyees less productive.