The comprehensive streamlining of IBM Corp’s US operations and phasing out of manufacturing plants surplus to requirements is leaving the company with under-exploited sites – but not all are being sold or closed – there are parts of IBM’s business that are earmarked for exceptionally rapid growth, and some surplus sites are being turned over […]
The comprehensive streamlining of IBM Corp’s US operations and phasing out of manufacturing plants surplus to requirements is leaving the company with under-exploited sites – but not all are being sold or closed – there are parts of IBM’s business that are earmarked for exceptionally rapid growth, and some surplus sites are being turned over to these. One such is the company’s printer development base in Boulder, Colorado, which has been given a new mission to develop turnkey systems for customers. IBM calls these application solutions, by which it means a combination of application software, specialised hardware and services developed to meet a customer’s specific needs. The company announced on February 13 that the labs at Charlotte, North Carolina; Endicott and Owego, New York; and Manassas, Virginia would take on or expand their applications development work, and the fact that a fifth laboratory is being turned over to the activity underlines the importance IBM now attaches to customer-specific business. The Boulder laboratory will specialise in applications for customers in the public sector, such as state and local governments, and for ones that span multiple industries. Printer development work done at Boulder will be consolidated with similar activities at the Tucson, Arizona laboratory and some Boulder employees with critical skills and currently working on system printer development, will be offered transfers to Tucson, while others will be retrained for jobs in the new Boulder lab; employment there is expected to remain at about 5,000.
