So the Anderon split from ibm has been announced for October 1st and new announcements and employee contracts are coming out.
Setting aside the painfully obvious point that this is a "quantum wafer foundry" with no real foundry that it owns or controls outright and that the Albany site itself can barely classify as a fully operational fab.
We need to ask ourselves honestly why?
- Why is IBM really splitting off 70-100 people to form this new company?
- Why create Anderon at all in the first place?
- Why not just keep it all internal to IBM?
The publicity stated comments and justification - that this is a way to attract customers who wouldn't work directly with IBM - doesn't hold up. Those same customers know Anderon is strongly affiliated, owned and controlled by IBM, so the same logic of avoid working with IBM would apply to Anderon as well.
Why would a competitor hand over its most sensitive fabrication data to an IBM-affiliated company when IBM is competing against them directly?
Flip it around: why would IBM let its competitive-advantage IP flow into Anderon, where it could end up supporting competitors' builds? Anderon is taking a capability that gives IBM an edge and potentially turning it into shared infrastructure. So basically the publicly stated purpose for creating Anderon is a bold face lie.
Is this really just cost savings. Getting 70-100 employees off IBM's books and payroll? As one past comment put it: "it's just a layoff with extra steps."
Call it a spinoff, a joint venture, or a strategic carve out - it still smells exactly like a layoff wearing a lab coat.
This isn't a spinoff, it's a witness protection program for headcount. It’s a glorified layoff from ibm hidden and tucked in in a way ibm doesn’t have to classify it as such
IBM didn't build a competitor. It built an alibi.
Somewhere a strategy consultant got paid seven figures to rename 'layoff' as 'ecosystem expansion.
Bottom line: the publicly stated rationale doesn't add up to a coherent business case.
IBM’s public statements regarding this are just simply ridiculous. Do they actually believe their own words coming out of their mouths. Those saying it should be remembered and held accountable for rest of their careers.
Our leaders are using their usual flimsy internal justifications publicly to explain this. And it appears many who are not indoctrinated in the Albany culture are seeing right through the thin veil and rolling holes into it.
Make it make sense!