You are surprised that foreign people would write software that recommends to employee foreign people?
-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Gould Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 1:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: IBM Withdraws Patent Application on offshoring jobs IBM withdraws software patent application on offshoring jobs Mar 31, 2009 1:03 PM Apr 01, 2009 9:24 AM IBM is reportedly hiring 32,000 for its work sites in India and China Employees fearful of more layoffs at IBM work sites in U.S. ROCHESTER (KTTC-DT) -- Computer giant IBM has abruptly withdrawn a patent application for software that helps companies decide the benefits or disadvantages of moving jobs to another country. Five IBM software designers created the product and filed for a patent on it in September, 2007. But after news of the project broke on Monday, IBM quickly withdrew the patent application, calling it a mistake. IBM spokesman Steve Malkiewicz is quoted as saying the filing was "an error." Ironically, it took the U.S. Patent Office about a year and a half to publish the application, and it did so on March 26--the very day that IBM was initiating one of its "resource actions." In this case, industry observers believe IBM was eliminating four to five thousand jobs from its Global Business Services and Global Technology Services divisions, and moving them to India. The jobs outsourcing software patent application is titled "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR STRATEGIC GLOBAL RESOURCE SOURCING." Its somewhat complex abstract describes what it purports to do: "Method and system for strategic global resource sourcing in one aspect incorporates concurrently a plurality of qualitative and quantitative attributes that influence performance of sourcing strategy with respect to one or more quantitative measures, quantifies an impact of said qualitative attributes using said one or more quantitative measures, and optimizes the sourcing strategy with respect to said one or more quantitative measures subject to one or more constraints." The software's five designers are all based in the Westchester County, New York, region near IBM's world headquarters in Armonk. The five listed on the patent application are Ching-Hua Chen-Ritzo of Mahopac, Daniel Patrick Connors of Pleasant Valley, Markus Ettl of Yorktown Heights, Mayank Sharma of White Plains and Karthik Sourirajan, also of White Plains. IBM Rochester was not significantly touched by the latest downsizing of Big Blue's U.S. work force, from the information at hand. However, hundreds were cut in southeastern Minnesota in the so-called "resource action" the company pursued in late January. As KTTC NewsCenter reported in early March, it was an eye-opener for many long-time IBMers who lost their jobs in Rochester to see job descriptions for their old positions popping up in China. And anger built up when an analysis of the terminations showed that most of them came among those who were over age 50. The wife of one former IBM Rochester employee says there is fear over future IBM layoffs here in the U.S., but it is quite a different story as the company bulks up its operations in China and India. "There are TONS of new IBM jobs opening in China," she said. "It's going crazy over there. The number of IBM China positions listed on Project Match has really jumped in the last three months. Five years ago, IBM had about 1,000 jobs in India. My husband just read that they have 90,000 employees there now." For years, IBM has sought to employ its work force over a world-wide platform. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
