No, IBM had defined-benefit pensions, with 401ks as supplemental. In 2000 they announced that they would do away with pensions entirely for anyone not within N years of retirement (I don't recall at this point, possibly 5 or ten years). For those "near" retirement IBM would cease paying into the pension plan but they would still received a traditional pension from the funds up until that point.
Do other companies in tech have pensions? I just never heard of that before. I guess maybe in the context of the US Post Office (how Republicans forced it to fund retirement for so many year ahead, in hopes to bankrupt it and show how government services are ineffective and broken)
Pensions in the U.S. have always been a bit of a balance sheet scam. With few exceptions companies were allowed to comingle pension assets with the companies' day to day funds with a chunk kind-of fenced off. But the pension fund was fair game if the company went bankrupt, and in the 80s a very popular corporate raider tactic was to buy a company, leverage it as much as possible, and if it went bankrupt divert as much of the pension fund as possible to paying the very managers who bankrupted the company.
Government pensions are worse in that few government entities ever set aside a truly funded pension fund, using the argument that as a continuing entity theyd always be able to top off the fund with additional tax revenues if the investment projections did not pan out. In practice no elected official will voluntarily vote to raise taxes to meet the obligations to top off oension funds, hence the slow unfolding train wreck with public pensions in Illinois.
A general failure of any defined benefit pension seems to be the dependency on the sponsoring organization as a continuing, growing, profitable entity. No accomodation for changing economics, diminished industries, or reduced workforce.
Very few companies have those "traditional" pensions any more. Most of the companies that did have them discontinued them long ago. Just google for "pension liabilities" to see why.
About the only organizations that still have them feed at the public trough. And they're having problems with funding. Here's a recent story about a state transit agency. Its pension plan is over $800 million in the hole. And that's just one agency in one state. https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/10/27/pension-liab...
Novel. Hmm, I was working in software industry for 15+ years never seen place haven pensions. Do you mean 401k plans instead?