The company is quite top-heavy (at least within product development) right now so there are often a large number of employees filling the limited number of jobs at the higher levels. Many of these people would not get to their current level under the promotion rules of today but IBM has not done many demotions over the last decade. A lot of information is not shared by HR or the leadership team to combat the fear, uncertainty, and doubt caused by recurring layoffs. There is a lot of effort by certain groups within the company to promote their own technology/projects, including forcing it into products and offerings where it does not belong, in order to justify its(their) existence. A lot of good ideas are ruined by the fact that so many people have a vested interest in having "their stuff" included in the next big thing. Even though the opportunity to move from job to job exists within IBM, it is often difficult to move because everyone is already overbooked and understaffed with no option to back-fill your position. A lot of services jobs within the company require very high billable-utilization rates which result in employees not even being able to take all of their vacation without missing their targets.
