International Business Machine (NYSE:IBM) reportedly laid off 50% to 70% of the workforce at its Watson Health operation, primarily at recent acquisitions for which the tech giant paid at least $3.6 billion.
The layoffs, according to a May 25 report in The Register, involve Cleveland-based Explorys and Dallas-based Phytel, which IBM acquired in April 2015 for undisclosed amounts. Cleveland Clinic spinoff Explorys developed a secure cloud-computing platform used by 26 healthcare systems to identify patterns in diseases, treatments and outcomes; Phytel provides cloud-based services to healthcare providers to coordinate care to meet new healthcare quality requirements and reimbursement models.
Employees at medical image and clinical systems company Merge Healthcare, acquired for $1 billion in December 2015, and the Truven Health Analytics business acquired for $2.6 billion the following February, are also subject to the layoffs, according to the website, which cited “inside sources” and posts on Facebook and TheLayoff.com.