IBM's Secret Redundancies

<BR>IBM Eastern Europe/Asia has reduced staffing levels at its St Petersburg office to a minimum.<BR>DP's sources say that three people are working at the representative office, while around thirty specialists were once employed there. The general director, Dmitrii Vereshkin, who has held the position for more than a year, has also found a new job, at ZAO IT Centre Mebius.<BR>IBM spokesmen declined to confirm or deny the information. Initially Rosa Romanova, IBM's Moscow PR manager, announced that the company has reduced staffing by 30%. A little later, she declined to comment on the figure. "After the crisis struck, IBM underwent restructuring," said Romanova. "The management decided to alter the number of employees. We are not going to close the St Petersburg office, as this is a strategic area for us." No specific information was offered about the restructuring. According to computer market experts, IBM has never been a transparent company when it comes to its internal structure.