It’s all very well, but what are IBM Corp’s customers with vast computer centres scattered all over Europe going to make of such a dramatic economising on computer power by the company pressing them to buy more? According to the Wall Street Journal, the ordering, billing and operations functions for each IBM country operation are slightly different, and scattered among a total of 150 to 170 data centres employing 8,000 staff all told; operations chief Renato Riverso says that over the next five years, he wants to consolidate that lot into just three to five giant centres over the next five years, which suggests a big reduction not only in employees but in the number of computers.
