A decision by IBM Corp to collapse the work building storage systems for the AdStar unit in San Jose into just three plants from the present 10 is causing widespread concern across the IBM empire – and IBM Europe is simultaneously cutting an initial four plants loose to sink or swim, only one of which is directly affected by the AdStar decision. Havant in the UK – which does make disk drives; Jrfalla, making printers in Sweden; Valencia, making low-end ES/9000s in Spain, and at least a part of the big Montpelier mainframe and chips complex in France, are being re-classified as autonomous business units under their own managements, free to seek work outside as well as where they can from within IBM, but they are under notice that if they can’t demonstrate that they can operate profitably in 12 months, they will be closed. Six other international plants are to get the same treatment, and their identities will be revealed within a week. Overall, 10,000 jobs will go in Europe over the next two years. On the storage side, the surviving plants are San Jose, Mainz and Fujisawa, which means that 700 full-time and 1,200 temporary posts go in Rochester, Minnesota. Rochester will continue to manufacture disk substrates and design the low-end disk drives.
