IBM services unit to cut jobs but says hiring still on

SAN FRANCISCO: International Business Machines Corp's services unit is laying

off some US employees but is continuing to hire and will end the year with a net

gain in head count, a spokeswoman said on Monday.

The job cuts, announced by local managers on Monday, were made to look at

means to improve the balance of professional skills in their operations, said

IBM.

"This is not a voluntary program. I think today is the day that some

people are being notified, but it is something we do (in the) normal course of

business... the purpose is to rebalance our skills," said Jan Butler, a

spokeswoman for Global Services, the consulting arm of the technology giant.

She said it was difficult to forecast how many would be laid off because the

cuts were being implemented locally. "Based on previous action and things

we've done in the past, it is generally in the neighborhood of less than one

percent of the head count of global services," she said. "We will

continue with our hiring program and end the year with more people than we

started."

Global Services, which brings in more than a third of IBM sales and is one of

its fastest-growing units, employs about 150,000, with the U.S. division

accounting for roughly 40-60 percent of that total. IBM has 315,000 employees,

worldwide.

IBM closes purchase



Meanwhile the International Business Machines Corp. on Monday said it had

completed its $1 billion purchase of Informix Corp.'s database business.

Informix had an installed base of more than 100,000 database customers. The

IBM acquisition - which was announced on April 24 - doubles the size of Big

Blue's distributed database business, which is making an aggressive effort to

steal market share from rivals Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp.

Approximately 2,500 Informix employees on Monday were added to IBM's software

data management division, Lori Bosio, an IBM spokeswoman told Reuters. Armonk,

New York-based IBM will continue to support Informix customers, while working on

plans to wrap the acquired technology into its flagship DB2 Universal Database,

Bosio said.

"IBM and Informix are impressive as separate entities, and together, the

newly formed Data Management team will continue to deliver the most innovative

technologies at the best value to customers," Janet Perna, general manager,

IBM Data Management Solutions, said in a statement.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.