IBM Design

I would like to see IBM release something similar to Material Design / Bootstrap - that is home grown from their own design experts.

> But they survived 100+ years and trying to find way to stay in business.

They haven't had to try too hard to find they way. They sold to big business 100 years ago and they still do today. The fact that computers became prominent in smaller businesses doesn't change their success with the biggest.

I was going to say it works like a charm with javascript disabled, but it's just broken fast!

They recently updated their design thinking process. Pretty much the same thing, but more focused on iterative approaches?

So IBM just happened to target the same guy three times? Not disagreeing that IBM has had issues with hiring/firing, but three times seems like an insane coincidence.

They have to. It is part of the strategy and how it can manage to stay alfoat. At some point software consulting business was big so they had consultants for big projects. Then I don't know cloud got bit, so now what should they do, keep hoards of consults on payroll as a jobs program like TSA? Maybe retrain them? The fastest and easiest way it so lay them off.

At some point I've heard they sold cheese slicers. They probaby had experts in that. What should they do when the market situation changes? Keep selling and hiring more people in that area or lay them off.

> I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM.

I work for the State of Oregon. It's pretty much illegal to give employees free food without a business justification. Buying my own snacks and coffee is the default, and not a huge deal; I'd rather have money to spend as I deem fit than more calories. Complaining about not having a mini fridge full of Red Bull and a cabinet stocked with Doritos is a great way to make yourself look tone deaf and selfish when the vast, vast majority of American society doesn't have these fringe benefits.

Far, far worse is the series of things IBM's been doing to benefits. They've shifted the 401k match to the end of the year, so you have to survive any layoffs and stack ranking system to earn your contribution. Early retirement has been slashed from 6 months pay to 1 month.

I work for a large not-for-profit company. We don't get any free snacks or coffee free here either, but the other benefits outweigh that... like 10% 401a contribution, $30 per month commuter benefit, and $25k tuition reimbursement per year.

Coffee and snacks aren't everything. And honestly they're not much.

My history may be flawed, but doesn't IBM have a strong history of working for human rights from women to disabled to whatever race?

> I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM.

I suspect there is a large number of people who'd rather get paid more and buy their own snacks.

> I have it on good authority that you need to pay for snacks at IBM.

I'm not sure if your comment was a parody of HN/SV echo chamber thought bubble.

Possibly related to this: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/15/apple-teams-up-with-ibm-for...

I like the DEC PDP-8 shown on "Machines in motion", sitting on top of the IBM tape drive. All modern computers are boring :-)

Doesn't it seem like they're trying to do that by announcing they're hiring designers?

IBM has hundreds, if not thousands, of products that they own and maintain. Understand that the research for a design, designing it, and then developing it takes months to years to accomplish. IBM won't be able to update all of their products, but they will work on the ones that they can and then carry design consideration to all new products. Thats all a company can do. Same goes for Microsoft, Google, etc. IBM is a bit late to the game is their only issue.

Also consider, how are they going to get designers/people who care about design if they don't advertise it first. Yes there are products that need work, but to fix that issue they need to say Design 37 and more times just to get the attention of the right people. I am sure in your line of work as well, things don't just happen immediately because you want it to and sometimes to solve one problem you need to solve two or three others first.

Regardless of what happens with IBM, this sounds like someone with a chip on his shoulder. He wrote a book about how bad it is, then blogs about it.

It is like someone who got out of a relationship (didn't he work there?), but then keeps obsessing and talking to everyone else about it for 10 years after.