My Company was Acquired by IBM Recently

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Hello Everyone,

Well, as my title implies, my job security took a major hit recently with IBM's acquisition of the company I currently work for. This is my first time witnessing a corporate take over, so I'm not sure what to expect. My outlook on the situation isn't very good as I've been a Microsoft Admin for the past 3 years, and know nothing of IBM's infrastructure solutions.

Best case scenario I'm guessing is a demotion to help desk.

Has anyone else experienced an acquisition like this? What usually happens to the IT staff of the acquired company that uses different technologies?

 

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I've never experienced a take over either (as an employee), but I've seen it happen to others, even at companies I now work for as a consultant.

It's not necessarily always a bad thing. For example:

Big company A runs Exchange and takes over smaller company B, that runs Lotus Notes.
Big company A, then replaces Notes with Exchange.
What happens to the messaging (Notes) admins of company B?

The answer is complicated. I've seen Notes admins play it hard, not wanting to lose their work environment, and spend the next 1-2 years fighting it and providing the minimum of info to 'big company' so that a proper take-over could take place and that everything could smoothly get integrated into 'big company'.

Typically these admins lost their job at the end of the deal as 'big company' was tired of their crap.

I've seen instances similar to the above, where the admins of the 'small company' complied fully, and with things running very smoothly, the admins in the end got transferred, or even promoted to very adequate jobs befitting of their experitse and skillset.

But, YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Unfortunately, IBM is not a company very fond of Microsoft (seems to have been one long, drawn out fewd where IBM was left sore not only due to them losing out on OS2, but also losing out on major deals in other products as well, such as Lotus Notes these days).

I don't want to come off sounding gloomy, but a "Microsoft" advocate at IBM will probably have to work pretty hard to get the respect of their new mothership. Having said that, there are also advantages to working for a big company, and even IBM uses "some" Microsoft software (although some memos in the past years have stated that IBM was to remove everything Microsoft related from their environment).

Anyway, I for one am interested to hear how it will work out for you. IBM seems like an interesting company to work for, and I'm sure there are other interesting opportunities within their ranks.

Good luck, and try to make the best of it

 

This is not always as gloomy as it sometimes looks when it comes to company take overs and acquisitions. I have been in a similar situation though not IT related and was tupe'd over as well as trained on the new firms systems.

I believe the same might apply in your situation and from talking to your line manager you should be able to have some idea. However, wouldn't think they'd put you on the helpdesk as that would be a demotion and waste of your current skillset.

This is the reason why specialising in IT on one particular technology can come back and hunt us. I am currently, finishing up on my MCSA and MCSE 2003 and then straight on to VCP for VMware as we use it at work.

Anyway, worst case scenario polish up your CV and start looking for a new role as soon as. Best wishes and remember stay positive

 

Thanks Guys, I'll try and stay positive while still preparing for the worst. After my 680 exam in two weeks I'll dedicate my time to my CV.
Unfortunately, even my manager doesn't know what's going to happen yet. But we should know soon as I helped him compose a list of questions for IBM's IT integration manager yesterday.

I'll keep you posted.

 

Learning the basics of IBM's software might also be an idea.

 

Well, I just found out that they plan on replacing all of our laptops by November 22nd, which will include Notes, as well as a bunch of their other tools. That's over 400 Laptops.
So after that they'll probably be looking at our servers, if they take those and host them, I'm most likely screwed, unless as Sparky said, they bring me on as a consultant for another purpose. Outlook not so good.

 

Depends. How many people in the company? Over 400? If there's say, 600, then it would be a definite sign that some people will be going. If it's roughly the same amount of laptops then there's a good chance that everyone will be staying at least for some time for the integration.

 

Welcome to Lotus Notes the biggest pile of plop you will ever use. As others have pointed out I would do some research on IBM technologies. As for your future it could go down the route of retraining or redundancy but I would expect them to have a grace period to assess the situation before they decide what to do. Make yourself as keen as possible and willing to adapt and that's as much as you can do. At the end of the day sometimes it's a case of you can't do anything and your future will be decided for you.

 

IBM is in charge of programming the leading competitor to Microsoft Exchange, and they will most certainly not keep Exchange servers around for long.

Having said that, IBM is losing market share to Microsoft at a massive pace and these days, the only way for them to increase Notes usage, is by taking over companies. The transition from Notes to Exchange just keeps on picking pace unfortunately for IBM.

 

Lotus Notes is a joke of a system. ID files enough said really.

 

Funny enough (or not in my case ) I've had the opposite experience where I worked for IBM (via Manpower like 90% of IBMers) only to have Fujitsu take over the particular bit of business I was working on.

The upshot, I was TUPE'd across to Fujitsu and expect to be let go in the next few days as they no longer need me.

The IT job market stinks at the moment, this sort of thing is happening all to often.