Blogging as cost-cutting measure?

I'm not sure that's a good idea. From Silicon Valley Watcher, via Neville Hobson, IBM is encouraging employees to blog to evangelize products to increase revenues to reduce lay-offs. Boy, that's kind of setting the bar high. No pressure though, IBM bloggers...have fun out there ; )

Call me a purist, but if you want to blog for a reason beyond having conversations with customers (however you define them) them it's going to be a tedious activity and will fizzle for shizzle. Isn't it a little overly ambitious to tie blogging to some pie-in-the-sky results?  I mean, it's a grass-roots thing...no point in putting the cart before the horse. Baby steps, IBM, baby steps.

I mean blogging is interesting (well, it can be...you decide), but it's not the answer to everything! Why does it have to be the answer to everything? Is it just me or would it have been wiser to announce this blogging initiative before financial results?