International Business Machines Corp expects its new products and cost-cutting measures to have an increasingly positive impact as 1987 proceeds chairman John Akers told the annual meeting. Akers repeated his assessment of the companys outlook when first quarter results were announced last week that although the worldwide economic situation remains unsettled we see some encouraging signs. He said IBM shipments in the first quarter exceeded the 1986 level the first time that has happened since 1985. Akers said that IBM will increase its emphasis on service and support of customers this year and that by the end of 1987 it will have 20 pct more sales representatives and systems engineers than two years ago. He said the company is accomplishing this by both moving as many existing employees as possible into marketing and through new hires. Akers said IBM will increase its U.S. software programming workforce both through retraining and hiring by nearly six thousands people over early 1985 to a yearend total of 26000. Last year IBM announced that it would try to reduce its workforce without violating its historical no-layoff policy through early-retirement offers and retraining. Earlier this month the company introduced a new line of personal computers and this summer it will begin shipping a new generation of minicomputers it hopes will compete successfully against offerings from Digital Equipment Corp &lt;DEC>. Akers said We expect our product announcements and resource-balancing measures to have an increasingly positive impact as 1987 proceeds. Akers said that since last April the companys worldwide workforce has been reduced by 11000. He said some 14000 people have been moved from one IBM location to another headquarters staff positions were cut by 7000 and the number of U.S. managers has been cut by 1500. Akers said IBM is working hard to reduce our product cycle which is the time between the cenception of a new product and its first shipment. We want to make this as short as possible and we are making progress he said.
IBM <IBM> SEES INCREASINGLY POSITIVE 1987