IBM board probes claims of fudged sales figures that led to big bonuses for execs IBM's board of directors has started an investigation into claims its sales numbers were manipulated so that executives could secure big bonuses. If the board fails to take any action, it may face a lawsuit to claw back millions of dollars from top staff. In late March, just days before IBM was sued for securities fraud, the …
These days, "Nurse! the smelling salts! ... I need to go asleep ..." - LOL, I'm not complaining, when you have something like that which helps you then it's good to do if it helps you sleep although I remember when I was a student 50 years ago my friend always slept much better after snorting a little line.
Sadly we see crappy behavior like this described in IBM everywhere internationally and locally these days.
Nothing new here, IBM has been redirecting lots of revenue to "cloud", even mainframes. Along with increased executive bonuses, it was so the execs could say their cloud "imperatives" were working and IBM was a nimble company moving with the trend, when it was nothing of the sort.
Definitely misleading shareholders...
Long overdue, I fear. First, IBM was a technology company run by engineers, salespeople and lawyers. It was well on the way to irrelevance when they put a businessman in charge (Gerstner). He pulled it back from the brink but then handed over to accountants, and finally to a techie who has clearly been snowed by the accountants. The accountants didn't know how to manage but did know how to make bad numbers magically look good. Until they didn't, which is where they are now.
Gersterner took over from Akins. The main frame sales were good. I sold my share as an ISAM. Then Gersterner got the wild idea that Client Server Was far superior. On that model Gersterner got rid of support in sales then made support a standalone product. That left support open to competition. Executives at IBM never appreciated support. Which Support was the driving force behind sales. I noticed a lot of questionable executive practices all related to Executive bonuses moving sales of Client server to mainframe and back. Just long enough to record the sales in a specific executives benefit.
Soon Support would wither and die. Forcing IBM to move Mainframes to.its own data centers. Customers were sold time on mainframe. But told they had purchased a mainframe. They were sold DASD but actually sold a partition on a huge storage device. In My opinion IBM lost its integrity. Now those data centers are staffed with Indians throughout the USA. VERY FEW Americans work for IBM in the USA now.
Also if the figures aren't ... let's be generous... massaged... to show a more rosy picture, it will truthfully reval which C-suite initiatives - surprise - do not actually work as well as promised.
Damage can be limited before it gets really out of hand, the responsible exec's won't get huge bonuses for doing a shit job, and people will maybe think a bit harder about actually making stuff work instead of fudging the numbers trying to make some daft off-the-cuff idea appear to be working.
Might catch some of this nonsense before those responsible have migrated to pastures new where they can make the same mistakes all over again.
A large American company. Hiring C-level MBA-certified execs, often based upon their Old Boys connections from other large companies.
Cooking the books to line their own pockets.
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Say it ain't so! -_-
We've had more corporate scandals in the past 30 years than we had in the previous 80, but let's keep believing that our current interpretation of laissez-faire capitalism is good for us. The 39% that make up the dumb sheep voters keep believing in the Kool-Aid no matter what happens around them.
Are there any "real companies" any more, that make a product or service and sell it for a reasonable mark up? Instead we have companies which do share buy backs, "creative" accounting which Meyer Lansky would be jealous of, and all to prop up share prices so that certain people get bonuses.
Here in the UK we have a Chancellor of the Exchequer whose wife who creatively avoided paying tax here, claiming non-domicile status while being married to an effing MP and government minister. Was this some sort of long distance Skype relationship? Then, when she is called out, she "announces" that she will start paying tax here. How very generous.
Sometimes I feel that I'm the only person paying tax in this country.
If you want to change tax behaviour, change the tax rules. As long as the rules 'permit' something, individuals are entitled to maximise their own benefit; and companies have an actual fiduciary duty to maximise for their benefit. Otherwise the shareholders will riot.
tldr: don't pay more tax than you have to.
I truly hope Rometty (particularly), et al, pay for their sins one way or another. No one has yet been able to depose Ginni & crew. So many lost millions in commission because IBM later said there was a cap ($10-20K) when sales people tried to collect their money. Their BS never stops.
In the late late 70s/80s/early 90s IBM was just as bad. They did involuntary resignations after approved leaves of absence. Employees didn't think to sue back then and should have. They would've also had a plethora of sexual harassment/assault cases that would have closed them down. Instead, they threatened women that they'd lose their jobs if they spoke up! Now most of the senior level abusers are dead.
In 2013 I was strongly coerced into reporting a distributed software sale as a zLinux deal. No way in hell the customer would run the code on the mainframe. I fought back hard, telling the mainframe reps and mgrs “I’m a shareholder here too. This is wrong.”
In the end they escalated it, Sr. Directors were calling me directly and wouldn’t let up so I reluctantly did as they asked. The extra, unwarranted sales commissions astonished me. Just the two reps were paid over $100k. Not sure what the rest of them made.
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