Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1999/11/30/big_blue_wants_you/

Big Blue wants you in the Lotus position

Recruitment drive takes the fight to its software rivals

By Linda Harrison

Posted in On-Prem, 30th November 1999 08:04 GMT

IBM seems to be in a hiring and firing mood, announcing it will take on 500 software sales staff worldwide to compete with rivals such as Oracle.

Big Blue said the newcomers, to be hired during 2000, would bring numbers up to 7000 worldwide in its software sales group. The unit has over 22,000 staff in total.

"When you spread across the portfolio [of software], you end up needing a direct sales force of some size," Steve Mills, general manager of IBM's Software Solutions, told Bloomberg. The move followed IBM's decision last week to slash over 100 software staff in marketing and sales. I

n its third round of job cuts in the last six weeks, the company was aiming to re-jig the workforce into areas of sales growth, such as databases, Mills said. IBM also said it would increasingly lean on Web and phone sales to spur software turnover growth. ®