Up to 25% of Lotus' global workforce could be out of a job if an
expected revamp to align the software vendor with its parent IBM
goes ahead.
Dom Pancucci in Orlando
The proposed reorganisation provided a powerful undercurrent to
the traditional product announcements at the annual Lotusphere
conference in Orlando last week.
Aside from the speculation, Lotus launched the second phase of
its knowledge management strategy on time and hinted at
enhancements for the next-generation Domino release, codenamed
Rnext.
Strong indications of the imminent changes emerged before the
event, after an internal Lotus communication was passed to a US
newspaper.
Chairman and CEO, Al Zollar, effectively acknowledged the
reorganisation at the time and did not deny the existence of the
memo.
Job cuts at Lotus would not include sales or professional
services, according to sources - there is a strong possibility some
people will migrate to other IBM groups and assume new roles,
rather than be removed from the company.
Lotusphere was widely expected to provide the platform for
announcing the changes, but Zollar repeatedly tried to pour cold
water on the reorganisation. He stressed that staff would be
informed before any public statement was made.
But Zollar later accepted change would be inevitable within the
context of aligning Lotus more closely with IBM. This process has
been ongoing since IBM acquired Lotus in 1995 and he stressed it
represented a typical integration cycle following merger or
acquisition.
In a separate development, Lotus also revealed there would be no
Lotusphere Europe event this year, but did not give reasons for the
move.