Sidney

DISAPPOINTING RESULTS from Big Blue are likely to result in many thousands of jobs being lost in Western Europe, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That follows results which show that sales of IBM mainframes fell by 16 per cent in its financial first quarter, compared to the same quarter last year.

Quoting sources close to the firm, the Journal said two sites in Germany and three sites in Sweden would be shut. Some jobs lost here would be moved to cheaper labour pools in Eastern Europe, the newspaper said. But the move will result in "several thousand" job losses.

IBM only managed to grow its hardware business by a measly 0.2 per cent for the quarter, and blamed poor results on difficulty in clinching deals at the end of the quarter.

What's certain is that coupled with Sun and Apple results earlier this week, all technology stocks will squeak when the US stock exchanges open later this day.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22566

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