Sun needs a hatchet....but Jon's strategy is give opensource software away for free and hope noone does a tco on the maintenance costs or a feature function compare

It does sound like a sneaky way to off shore jobs! When will the beancounters realize that tho it saves on $$$ that the added value of the average off shored job is much lower than to keep it here. Why don't we start offshoring high level management and opposed to some slick looking and smooth talking butcher get (eg) an Indian CEO who makes 10% of before mentioned manager... Let's be real what DOES a CEO or CFO REALLY do? They have their minions to blame if something goes wrong and if it goes right they take the honor...

Multi nationals are here to stay but seriously the shipping off jobs has to stop!

As a current UK EDS Employee I am very worried. We have already gone through FTE reductions and are now down to the bone and service is starting to be affected.

More importantly where I live EDS is the main employer so lose my job and effectively I lose my families home :(

We had a giggle here trying to think up a new Reg unit for measuring redundancies called the "Hurd", based on his average axe-job, but the unit ended up so big we decided that going with the "Lehman" of 5000 victims was a more useable measure.

Mine's the coat with the logo "Culled from the Hurd".

'Can those of you without a WBS code please put your hands up...'

Interesting to hear the perception that "nearly half" the job losses will be in the US means that this is mainly a US-restructure? Could that be because the majority of the EDSers are in the US - just a thought.

Meanwhile, that still means - by my reckoning - that there's 12,500+ jobs to go around the globe. And since Europe is reputedly the most expensive place to do biz then that's where most of the jobs will go surely.

Now given the rest of Europe has effective unions and labor laws, you can just guarantee that the majority of these European job cuts will be in the UK.

So all in all, not a good time to work for EDS/HP UK I would think.

<snip> major tar brushing </snip>

"My heart bleeds for them. I hope they never work again"

I think you'll find that in a company as vast as EDS the UK base is large and not all of us are responsible or have even been near the projects you refer to. So while you're slagging off and tarring all with a brush as large as your ego, try to remember what someone above has said. There are no other main businesses around here for IT staff. Many stand to lose a lot should this go ahead in the numbers suspected, especially for those who joined post 2000. I too will lose virtually everything should I be made redundant.

The taxpayer could keep the entire EDS workforce in benefits indefinitely and still be financial ahead of the game if only EDS/HP promises to never, ever bid on a UK government tender again.

Re: @Sceptical Bastard (Anonymous Coward) - well said fellow EDSer! :D It really pisses me off when you get some know-it-all b'ard come along and go "you f'd up project XXXX - so you're all obviously a bunch of useless t--sers". My answer to that is - if you think working with HMG is so easy then - come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you're-good-enough. Look around and you'll see that it's seemingly very rare to get a govt contract to go without a hitch - so unless every company bidding is equally useless, you've got to focus on the one common factor - the customer!!

I've been lucky enough to keep my EDS job for a while now, (I do very little work with HMG), and a large number of the techies I deal with day-in, day-out bust a gut to deliver a good product, on time, every time. I was kind of hoping that the HP takeover would introduce some new blood and the good folks would get some recognition - after all HP do claim to be "an engineering-led company", (naive in the extreme I know!). From this announcement (in the article) this claim looks like so many fine words again. I'd love to be proved wrong, and it turn out that the culled consist of the dead weight admin - you know the "professional meeting attenders", but I suspect that the tech grades will get chopped again.

@How will they do it??? - sorry mate, you just gave yourself away as an EDS employee - HP black helicopters are inbound on your signal! ;)

Gotta go know - think I'm going to need to update my c.v. very soon...

first headline: Hp buys EDS will screw 24,000 employees.

second headline: HURD and other top execs get massive bonuses this year.

where's the spider logo?

Chances are they're not counting contractors on that total as they're not "real" employees. I wonder what the real figure is....

Considering the messes they made of various public funded IT projects, do you think that's unfair ?? Or are you one of those so habituated to feeding off the public trough that you cannot get a decent job without it ??

@Ishkandar - as a few posters above have stated, not all EDS employees in the UK work on government contracts. And while we all hear about the government contracts going wrong (for example, the inland revenue one where the goalposts kept being moved thus requiring the system to be changed, yet the final deadline wasn't allowed to be moved, that's no way all EDS's fault) you never hear of the ones that go really well, because contract success is not newsworthy. If EDS were really so bad why do they still get the contracts?

AC and hiding from the black helicopters for obvious reasons. Now where's my WBS code?

The simple truth of the matter is that if there is enough IT related work to go round then someone else will employ you, and if not then unfortunately not.

If you are hard working, busy, competent, dedicated and flexible as you obviously are then you should have no trouble getting another job. It is only if you are part of the problem that you likely won't.

Also, look at it this way, if HP get rid of the incompetent ones who screw up all the projects aforementioned, then it is really good for you in that you keep your job and your company becomes much stronger. However if they fall for the bullshit and keep the tossers then do you really want to keep working there?

You obviously have no experience of working on Government contracts.

I did work on the revenue account for a short while and I think you need a few facts to hand. First, 80% of the staff on that account were TUPE'd across from the civil service and subsequently TUPE'd across to CapGemini when EDS lost the contract. Oh, and a fair proportion of the ex civil service staff were happy to cruise along until they reached retirement and that indexed-linked pension they were entitled to.

Having worked on other Government accounts with EDS and other companies I can confirm what others here have already said - that there are a lot of good people in the company and that on Government contracts it is frequently the customer that initiates changes that subsequently become large overruns. Changing requirements is a favourite - but then so is unclear requirements - why not take a look at the business drivers behind the NHS IT 'revamp' and the formal statement of requirements? Oh, and you can have a go at trying to get a Civil Servant to agree to something that could later be perceived as the wrong decision while you are at it.

CSA suffered from many requirements changes, and EDS capitulated where it shouldn't have done. Armed Forces pay was the largest ever deployment of the COTS software in question and turned out to be not as COTS as it was supposed to be.

Frequently you will find that the IT supplier isn't enforcing change control strongly enough to stop these problems but equally you will find that requirements are so wooly as to allow the customer to argue that work never envisaged is actually in scope...

I also worked on a successful project that was cancelled by a government department just as we finished acceptance testing because they decided they couldn't afford the support costs.

And finally... perhaps you could name me a large IT supplier that has a track record of repeated, successful engagements with UK Government, no delays, overruns, re-costings, legal action, lost data, bad headlines... until recently only PA Consulting seemed to have a clean record but they've lost that now as well.

I work hard to ensure that the work I do for UK Government meets requirements and is of good quality. All too frequently the fate of the systems being developed is sealed at contract signing or by weak project management, risk management or change control. I can't change the way Civil Servants approach their work.

Mine's the one with the open-ended requirements in the inside pocket.

The nature of work at EDS, specifically with the DWP is that work comes in peaks and troughs. We are currently at a slight trough having finished a monumental project. Those of us who are being filtered to other areas while the next workload is being agreed are in very vulnerable positions. I have not worked on any of the projects mentioned by the 'sack them all' brigade and as such take exception at the slurs (and yes, I see they have now been pin pointed at management/middle management). Nevertheless, in this area there are no other large IT firms. It's not simply a case of keep the best sack the rest. For those with families and dependant on our jobs, and/or those who joined post the EDS takeover, we would, not to put too fine a point on it, be utterly screwed.

Well said, Mr Sceptical, couldn't agree more with what you're saying there. My apologies (me dander is down at t'moment) for assuming you to be one of these motor-mouths who use Windows and assume that makes them qualified to sally forth on all things IT. I'll just get some ketchup to put on that slice of humble pie I'm having for lunch! ;) (see the posting "@ChrisW" for an example of the spite we get - heck sometimes I think I know what Jade Goody must feel like).

Also interesting to see that before the takeover there was a flood of information on what was going on. Now, we're back to normal, where industry analysts and journo's know a hang of a lot more than the poor schlubs who work for EDS (an HP company). And you can see who this announcement was done for - since apparently the stock price rose after the news was released.

They talk airily about "increasing delivery" - so does that mean the folks that actually take the salespersons promises and try and make these solid? If so, then that's the architects, engineers and sysops - yep, the very folks you can bet your last HBOS share on being the first folks out of the door. To be replaced with ... sales and marketing. Have these wallies not learned anything from the disasterous Dick (well named) Brown years!

Paris icon, because I hope against hope that she's my next boss, (equally useless as some of the EDS bosses I've been forced to work for, but easier on the eye!)