Saturday, January 16, 2010

Google, Apple and Microsoft are mentioned... where's IBM?

An article headed "How to get a job at Google, Apple, or Microsoft" means that IBM (who weren't mentioned at all in the main text) either:
  • hasn't yet recovered from the GFC and isn't hiring, or
  • is recovering, but doesn't think they need more staff, or
  • is recovering and hiring, but hasn't taken that journalist out to lunch recently.
Regardless of the reason, I see this (and similar articles) as evidence that IBM software group is still struggling for mind share with the Fourth Estate.

C'mon 'Lotus Knows' ... start revving that PR engine!
.

2 comments:

Ian Scott said...

I hear you but c'mon....Apple has a very small (if increasing) share of the desktop market and isn't really in the cloud....LotusLive just grabbed a bigger deployment in the cloud than Google ever has....and Microsoft is watching....or is that standing still?

Maybe IBM wasn't mentioned because the journalist is going out to lunch.

LukeK said...

There might be another reason - who actually wants to work for IBM?

IBM is the textbook example of a large, anonymous, unfeeling and bureaucratic company. Even when I left college twenty years ago, IBM was the company that had just canned tens of thousands of middle managers. Look at how bureaucratic and customer-unfriendly their sites are. And this is the same company that offered its laid off workers a job in Bangalore (at the local salary)?

Google seems cool. Apple seems cool. You'll be creating something (probably) quickly and using the latest technologies. Microsoft used to be this way, and still is to some extent but it's telling that it's being compared to IBM.

If you're a bright person who loves code, your odds of solving a really challenging problem and having millions of people see it are much higher at Google, Amazon and Facebook than at IBM. Great opportunities in IBM research might still exist, but that's about it.