This is fairly standard practice at large corporations, especially if you are an average peon there.
Unrelated from the main point of the article, but IBM is absolutely a dinosaur and in decline.
This just happened at my wife's work, too. It's easy to track what employees email or send through a network. It's more difficult to block what's being saved locally. Anything from contacts to blueprints to financial data could be walking out the door.
Might be a pain in the ass but security wise its a good move. Just make sure you buy a home closer to the offices.