IBM

They have a great athletic facility here for employees, including well-​maintained set of tennis courts. My friends and I (and our families) used to picnic here and play tennis here on Sundays when I was still with IBM Research. If you’re an IBM employee, you should take advantage of this facility.

Ex-​IBM Employee.
Pros:
— All IBM departments are pretty well run. Good documentation. IBM Employee W3 Intranet system is great.
Cons:
— The only issue they have now a days is their propensity to lay off people. I don’t care if you’re Mr. Hotshot for a while… eventually your position will be going overseas.
In the end, its not a bad job while you have it. Just do your work so you can enjoy your life. Don’t give a company any loyalty though as you will recieve none yourself.
Also, to any business execs thinking about outsourcing… please think hard. Every account IBM takes over has ended in disaster. The money you save looks great on paper until you start running into problems with delays or getting nickled and dimed on things outside the contract they you missed.

IBM — You get one star.
Why? Two words: Lotus Notes. This review deals with that piece of IBM and only that piece. It’s to the point now that I won’t purchase an IBM computer because they put their name on that product.
Lotus Notes is in the running for the worst piece of software ever written. (Though, being fair, some of the Microsoft operating systems are in the running for it, and actually Microsoft is part of the reason that lotus notes sucks so much). It’s buggy, times out all over the place, it’s not intuitive to use, and is usually not worth the time to use it.
Half of the program reinvents the wheel. Like team rooms, for example. Folks would be better serviced by doing about ten different things than using one of these inefficient piles of crap. A simple FTP or web server, Dropbox, and even friggin’ GMAIL accounts make more sense to use than a Team Room, as they each deal with the content given to their databases more efficiently.
I have a degree in electrical engineering, and another degree in computer engineering, yet I can’t understand how anyone bears to use your program. It would be difficult to estimate how many hours of my life have been wasted by working with lotus notes – trying to figure out how to import data, export data, waiting for downloading data, rebooting my computer after Lotus Notes crashed it, searching for e-​mails, or just simply waiting for the program to load.
Horrendous piece of software. Avoid like the plague.

Having visited IBM headquarters on several occasions, and as a long time user of IBM products and services, I feel uniquely qualified to offer a hearty «Congratulations» to our benevolent silicon overlords for Watson’s (not it’s real name… it’s real name is «10 101 110 110 000 101 244 624 631 892 981 152 208 381 804 544» an unpronounceable string of 1’s and 0’s) victory over a couple of carbon based life forms (human) on the television program «Jeopardy».
While some may worry that computers (and eventually robots) will «take over» and «enslave» humanity… I would submit that this process is already well down the road, and is reasonably assured of nearly complete success (barring an EMP event of some sort).
We already are so reliant on the trojan horses in our pocket… I mean, really… do you even consider leaving home without your iPhone/​iPad/​Android, or its slightly retarded cousin «Blackberry»?
Of course you don’t…neither do I… I wouldn’t want to offend Watson or his brethren and sisteren.
And I rely on literally hundreds of these silicon based critters to run my life… and (as it turns out) they really do run my life.
The last guy to offend our mighty «protectors» was the new owner of the Segway Corporation who was killed when his Segway «accidentally» backed over a cliff, mere moments after he «raged at the machine»!
That’s not how I want to go.
In fact, I don’t want to go at all!
Maybe if I create and provide good enough software, the machines will offer me an android body before I run out of time… just like on the SyFy channel (official motto — «We are just as accurate and reliable as Fox News or MSNBC»).
So if (in the future) you see a silvery looking guy retoxing with a hamburger after his morning run, walk over and say «Hi Donald».
I’ll put in a good word for you with my masters.