IBM moves scientists out of Almaden Research Center

IBM, which employees say stands for "I've Been Moved" due to frequent relocation directives, is moving research scientists from its Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, to its Silicon Valley Lab a few miles east. The fate of the facility has yet to be clarified. Founded in 1986 in an idyllic location on the …

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Just move

everything to India and be done with it. Oh, and don't forget to turn the lights off. Sell off the land to real-estate companies/land speculators and buy back some more stock - seems to be the usual playbook.

Over in blighty, how long will they hang on to Hursley? The bean counters don't like seeing rolling countryside and acres of manicured lawns.

Icon: demolition ball strikes

[LenG]

Re: Just move

Fortunately Hursley House is a Grade II listed building and has a lot of other history associated with it (such as the development of the Spitfire) so it is safe from any sort of development involving significant changes to the house/grounds. Whether IBM stays there is a different question but given that their offices in nearby Basingstoke have been shut down they might have problems finding an alternative site anywhere nearby and moving a long way would probably entail a lot of staff leakage.

[Korev]

Re: Just move

> moving a long way would probably entail a lot of staff leakage.

That could well be seen as an advantage these days...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just move

Rather send to be exactly the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just move

IBM - Indian Business Machines.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just move

See what happened at Warwick.

https://www.warwickshireworld.com/business/ps5m-revamp-of-former-ibm-campus-in-warwick-has-been-completed-and-more-than-two-thirds-of-space-has-already-been-let-3914598

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Just move

Yep, at North Harbour, I think they still have the DC and a bit of what used to be building A. The site is now called "Lakeside North Harbour". Tenants of varying size. At one point, even the office of the local MP at the time, Penny Mordaunt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just move

They've moved from North Harbour completely now. The DC went to Kyndryl and the UK head office is now Hursley.

[David Newall]

Seems unlikely

"Founded in 1986 ... the scientists based there pioneered innovations like the world's first hard disk drive and relational database, the company once boasted."

That's two things which were widely used earlier than the 1986 founding date.

[IGotOut]

Re: Seems unlikely

The linked article is from 2016, but it's very badly written.

The infographic is very misleading implies they were celebrating 30 years of these inventions.

But the text states they were created by IBM labs who moved to the "new" site.

It's a mess of a press release.

[yet another bruce]

Choreography and Merriment

At least IBM are keeping the Yorktown Heights site open, praise Watson!

[vmy2197]

"I wanted to help clarify some of the details and address any misconceptions that exist," Gambetta wrote. "IBM will absolutely continue to maintain a post office box in Almaden. We're very proud of what was accomplished here and want to keep the tradition alive."

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Please confirm this as a joke. No one can be that lacking in self-awareness. There's a bit of me that wouldn't be surprised.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sad

Sounds like IBM are winding down! Research is something that sets companies apart. If they separate all the bofs it wont be as effective even with Teams etc. Is it separating into a "consultancy". No direct revenue, no job? If they play that game they will decline, there will be no differentiator. I don't see their AI becoming big, just like their cloud; too little, too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sad

Modern corporations differentiate by getting rid of all projects and personnel as they cost money, and constructing as much word salad as necessary to satisfy investors.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've Become Meaninlgess

[Anonymous Coward]

International Broken Marriages

...was the one I heard

[Sparkus]

Prefictible next step....

in the dismantling, dismembering, and sell off of IBM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Almaden -- Home of huge missed opportunities

In the early 2000's I worked on a project with IBM research. I got to visit the Almaden facility a few times. While there we would be given a briefing on the work being done there. At the time IBM had a web search engine that was as good as Google's. Google was in its infancy and hadn't yet come to dominate the search market. IBM had a working prototype of a large cluster of inexpensive (Intel) servers working together cooperative. Google and Amazon were both working on similar technology. I recognized immediately the immense value and potential of this work. Had IBM acted on these innovations it could have been the Google of search and the Amazon of cloud computing. But we all know how this story ended. IBM didn't have a clue how to commercialize and monetize this technology. As Lou Gerstner once said: "Good idea's don't come out of IBM research. They escape."

The real estate value of the Almaden site is spectacular. I am sure IBM is already planning its sale and factoring that income into future earnings statements.

To the brilliant people in IBM research I have simple advice -- GET OUT. Go somewhere where your innovations will see the light of day and truly change the world. That place is not IBM.