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(Some) staff can breathe easy
Computer giant IBM has denied claims it will cut more than 100,000 jobs.
In a statement, the company said: "IBM does not comment on rumours, even ridiculous or baseless ones.
"If anyone had checked information readily available from our public earnings statements, or had simply asked us, they would know that IBM has already announced the company has just taken a $600m (£398m) charge for workforce rebalancing. This equates to several thousand people, a small fraction of what's been reported."
In other words, it will cut thousands of jobs, but nowhere near the reported figure.
(And it seems it does comment on rumours.)
Forbes originally reported the mass redundancies, which would equate to 26 per cent of IBM's global workforce. It said the scheme was known internally as Project Chrome. The report went on to say it would "traumatise the corporation and put most accounts into immediate crisis."
When we asked IBM for comment yesterday, it replied: "IBM declines to comment on speculation."
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The company's revenue has declined in the last 11 consecutive quarters. It fell 12 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared to the same period last year. Revenue for 2014 as a whole was down 6 per cent compared to 2013.
IBM is currently going through a transition to focus on cloud computing, rather than its traditional hardware business model. Its cloud services will be pushed to 40 new cloud data centres in order to meet global demand. It's inked a deal with data centre provider Equinix.
