A CCIE provided yours truly with the following CCIE gossip:
"Dear Brad,"
"AT&T CCIE employees are leaving in droves."
"With the merger of AT&T and SBC, SBC has cut the bonus money that keep many CCIE’s at AT&T, (Base + up to $50k bonus)."
"So with a 33% or more cut in pay, they are leaving."
"As Cisco’s biggest VAR this causes a number of problems for Cisco and AT&T equipment sales."
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Cisco declined to comment, while AT&T has not responded to a request for comment.
Related story: AT&T spending pullback hitting Cisco
View more CCIE water cooler gossip.
Do YOU find it as odd as yours truly that AT&T may possibly be giving CCIE pay haircuts smack in the middle of the much ballyhooed Cisco talent shortage?
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Pay cut more on the order of 40%
Yours truly received the following message (from someone who claims to have spoken with an AT&T insider) regarding the above gossip about pay cuts for CCIEs employed by AT&T:
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"I can't speak for other legacy companies that make up the new AT&T, but for those CCIE's coming from BellSouth, they were told about a year ago that the bonus component would be done away with effective 12/31/08."
"This was essentially a pay cut more on the order of 40%, without the accelerator components of the bonus plan."
"This heaped on top of years of no or minimal pay raises, despite excellent performance reviews, pretty much made AT&T's strategy in this area clear."
"As a result, most of the legacy BellSouth CCIE's have already left."
"Within the past couple of months, AT&T sales started complaining of having former employees working for competitors beating them for business."
"HR is reviewing the situation."
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Sincerely,
Brad Reese
http://www.BradReese.Com
Cisco quietly drops $40M per CCIE rule
Curious to know if there might somehow be a connection between the below and the possible AT&T pay cut for CCIEs?
Cisco partners consolidate, Cisco quietly drops $40M per CCIE rule - does this depress the CCIE job market?
Sincerely,
Brad Reese
http://www.BradReese.Com
What changed over the last few years was Voice
Yours truly received the following message regarding the above $40M rule from a Senior CCIE:
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"What changed over the last few years was Voice."
"In the past Cisco was a router/switch company and revenue reflected high-end switches and routers."
"Every sale had a complex element in the configuration."
"With voice most of the cost is in low-end POE switches and IP-Phone Sets."
"Figure $200 per set with an average sale equaling 100 sets you can climb to $40 million pretty fast."
"Now they have done something to offset the sales of IP-Phones and that is the Masters program."
"The focus there is to provide additional discounts for Masters of specific technologies, Security and Unified Communications are the first two."
"Now with Security that includes the Ironport solutions."
"For Voice the direction is IP Call Center solutions."
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Sincerely,
Brad Reese
http://www.BradReese.Com
Inside AT&T information
Yours truly received the following email message from a person who claims to have inside AT&T information:
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"I saw your water cooler gossip."
"And I will confirm that is the case."
"Of course, it is a bit limited in the audience that got hit."
"It was primarily the BellSouth contingent pre-merger."
"All of the post-sales CCIEs had a variable compensation package that was very decent."
"For those individuals, the rough estimate was about 30%, but it ranged from 20 to 40%."
"They also said there was no plan to make it right."
"Since AT&T overall is not all that worried about the few CCIEs in the SE US, it's not going to affect them all that much, therefore, no real motivation to stop the bleeding."
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Sincerely,
Brad Reese
http://www.BradReese.Com