Word: ibm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Pretty neat, you think? Just wait until the third generation of shopping agents moves out of the lab. Even now, folks at M.I.T. and IBM are preparing for a world in which every transaction becomes a complex trade deal between a pricing bot acting for the site and a shopping bot acting for you. "Dynamic pricing, that's the big notion," says Professor Pattie Maes, director of the software-agents group at the M.I.T. media lab. "After all, fixed prices have been around only for a couple of hundred years...
...worker's last years of service, to more flexible, so-called cash-balance plans. The new model lets workers build up their nest eggs at a steadier pace and take the balance from job to job. It is more consistent with today's career cycle. But when IBM announced its conversion in May, thousands of middle-aged IBM workers, hardly known for their activism, began screaming that the switch promoted age discrimination...
...actually do better under a cash-balance plan, 40- to 50-year-olds about to enter their peak earning years can lose up to half of their expected final payout. To drive that point home, some Big Blue employees flew a banner over the Minnesota state fair that read, IBM'S PENSION THEFT COULD HAPPEN...
Just as Congress was gearing up to hold hearings on the issue, IBM announced it would change the eligibility rules to double the number of workers--to 65,000--who would be able to keep their old pensions. Still, IBM senior vice president J. Thomas Bouchard, testifying before the Senate last week, said firms like his need the allure of cash balances to attract young, mobile high-tech workers in a tight talent market: "There just isn't enough money to go around to give a choice to everybody." Many employer groups warn that onerous restrictions could do more harm...
...benefits. (The company denies the charges.) A similar case is set to go to trial next spring against Onan Corp., a subsidiary of Cummins Engine Co. Says William Carr, an attorney representing workers in the case: "These plans are a profit center." Only now, considering the outcry, companies like IBM will start to wonder whether the costs outweigh the benefits...