Recruiting in China

IBM (NYSE: IBM), the IT giant that has been making money with utmost concentration in China, now finds that it is facing a fierce combat with archrival Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), which is attracting talents from the former with higher wages. Also gone are customers IBM has gained after years of hard work.

Interestingly, software tycoon Microsoft seldom had face- to-face conflicts with IBM in the past when it has been caring its own businesses. However, a headhunting war has broken out between both sides in the Chinese market. The targets they are scrambling for are mostly project managers or consultants with rich customer resources.

A middle-level manager of IBM, who earns CNY 40,000 a month, will get more than CNY 60,000 when he choose to work for Microsoft. At a party of old-time colleagues, an IBM employee finds out that his former partners are still project managers or consultants. The difference is that they have hunted new jobs at Microsoft.

IBM's project consultants need to directly talk with customers, communicating information on setup, maintenance, and usage of complex system framework, as well as equipment. The customer resources are what Microsoft is greatly interested, because the market has stable revenue sources, and produces huge profits, and fewer price wars.

Selling operating system and office software will still be pillar businesses of Microsoft, but it is not enough for the software titan in the Internet era. Internet services are Microsoft's focus in the future. The company will shift from personal applications to business software, a territory of other three magnates, namely, IBM, SAP, and Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL).

Microsoft's enterprise application platform debuted the American market in March 2008. When related products appeared at the release conference in Beijing on March 13, the company organized a super large lecture with 7,000 attendants in Beijing Workers' Indoor Arena.

An analyst points out that Microsoft needs to pay attention to two affairs in the post-Gates era: the acquisition of Yahoo Inc., and the development in the enterprise software market.

So, Microsoft chooses to seize archrival's talent resources. But, the snatch has not covered all the divisions of IBM. An in-service IBM consultant tells reporters that the company's consultants are working for four business lines including software, hardware, research, and service, while Microsoft only shows interest in software and research.