Posted 11/06/09 at 08:02:36 AM by Paul Lilly

As part of a restructuring effort, Blue Coat Systems said it plans to slash nearly 20 percent of its workforce. The firm will issue about 280 layoffs in all and close its facilities in Riga, Latvia, South Plainfield, New Jersey, and Zoelemeer, Netherlands.

At the same time, Blue Coat announced plans to acquire S7 Software, a services company out of Banglaore, for $5.25 million in cash. The acquisition will also add 65 employees to Blue Coat's workforce.

"The combination of the restructuring program and the acquisition of S7 Software strikes an appropriate balance between profitability and investment for innovation," said Gordon Brooks, senior vice president and chief financial officer. "Together these actions will allow us to invest for future growth while aligning the Company’s cost structure to its current revenue level, which should drive higher and more consistent levels of profitability."

In addition to the layoffs, Blue Coat will relocate an undisclosed number of engineering jobs from its Sunnyvale, California, and Austin, Texas offices to S7's offices in Bangalore and a few other locations. After factoring in S7's employees and a few new hires, Blue Coat's workforce reduction will be closer to 10 percent.

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Posted 11/04/09 at 12:42:50 PM by Paul Lilly

Microsoft may have been a little conservative earlier this year when it said it would eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in response to falling sales and profits. Now in its third round of layoffs since Janary, the software company plans to cut 800 jobs, which would put the total number somewhere around 5,400 so far.

The first round of layoffs began in January when Microsoft handed out 1,400 pinks slips, and then thousands more in May. But the worst news coming from Redmond is that more layoffs are yet to come

"Today, we are eliminating around 800 positions spread across multiple businesses and locations and have completed our reduction plan sooner than we had anticipated 11 months ago," Microsoft said in a statement. "At the same time, we continue to hire in priority areas, but also understand that continuing to manage our businesses closely, as we always do, can mean additional headcount adjustments."

The "headcount adjustments" come just a little over a week since Microsoft reported declines in revenues and profits.

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Posted 11/04/09 at 08:08:18 AM by Paul Lilly

It's not been a very good year for Novell employees, who never know what the next day will bring. For 100 to 130 workers out of Novell's roughly 3,900 global employees, this week brought more pink slips, CNet reports.

CNet's sources are saying that the Workgroup division saw the most layoffs, but according to Ian Bruce, Novell's public-relations director, the cuts sliced "across the company, both geographically and productwise."

Ironically enough, Linux jobs in general are doing a smashing job and are up 6 percent ince January, according to data from Dice.com. So if there's a silver lining to all this, Novell employees that were let go might not have such a rough spot finding employment elsewhere. In the meantime, they'll have several months of severance pay to tide them over, which is based on the number of years they were with the company, plus other factors.

And what about those who still have employment at Novell? The company also announced it would suspending 401(k) matching contributions.

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Posted 10/20/09 at 05:52:21 PM by Jason Barry

Yahoo was able to report positive numbers to the tune of $186m so far this year compared to the disappointing $54m they reported this time last year. While those numbers seem promising, sales fell about 12% this year with revenue down to $1.58b.

They can report these numbers because thye slashed more than 2,000 jobs during the past year, freeing some of their overhead costs. Further, they deployed some large service changes, such as welcoming the use of rivals onto its portal, and upgrading and enhancing its web search tools. They also initiated a $100m global advertising campaign for its portal and advertising services.

Most likely, Microsoft is happiest to hear this positive growth as they signed a deal in July to utilize Yahoo’s advertising sales in exchange for Microsoft’s search services. The Federal Trade Commission is still finalizing the deal.

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Posted 10/09/09 at 11:50:57 AM by Paul Lilly

Dell said on Wednesday that it plans to close its desktop computer manufacturing plant located in North Carolina by the end of January. The announcement comes just two days after the plant celebrated its fourth year in operation.

The shuttering will put 600 workers in the unemployment line next month, and about 905 employees will be cut by the time the plant closes in January 2010. Dell said it will provide affected employees competitive severance packages, including severance pay, incentive payments, benefits continuation, and outplacement services.

Severance packages come as little consolation to employees who may have been put on the chopping block as a result of a dispute over a $280 million incentive package to open the plant in North Carolina. In 2004, the state agreed to give Dell $280 million in tax breaks, build roads to the factory, and open Dell repair classes in local colleges. In exchange, Dell agreed to invest $100 million in the factory and create 1,500 jobs within five years. But the agreement prompted a lawsuit claiming that using tax revenue to fund grants for private companies goes against the state's constitution.

Dell made no mention of the lawsuit when announcing plans to shut the plant, and instead pointed fingers at the economy.

"This is a difficult decision, especially for our North Carolina colleagues, but a necessary one for our customers and our company," said Frank Miller VP of Dell's Public Business Unit Supply Chain.

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Posted 08/30/09 at 10:29:00 AM by Justin Kerr

Stronger than expected demand for microprocessors has prompted Intel to raise its Q3 forecast from $8.1 billion to $9.2 billion, and the good news is they aren’t the only ones predicting better times ahead. Both HP and Dell are forecasting Q3 revenues to rise, though this news comes hot on the heels of disappointing year to date earnings.

On Thursday, Dell reported a 23 percent drop in Q2 profit, but still managed to beat the street estimates. CEO Michael Dell claims, “if current demand trends continue, we expect revenue for the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half”. Rival Hewlett-Packard reported a similarly depressing drop in profit of 19 percent for the first half of the year, but is also expecting the trend to reverse itself soon.

The PC Industry is expected to benefit from the economic stimulus package in China, as well as what appears to be the start of an economic recovery in the U.S. Windows 7 is also expected to help move PCs in the consumer sector, but businesses will likely put off upgrading for at least a year or more.

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Posted 08/19/09 at 09:26:04 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Many financial savants grabbed their crystal balls and went into hiding when the economy went into freefall. Now that there are signs of recovery, they are again gazing into their crystal balls with renewed hope. According to many of them, including IMF’s chief economist Olivier Blanchard, the recession is behind us.

Tech honchos now believe that the IT industry would lead the recovery. According to a survey conducted by KPMG, two thirds of the 130 CEOs that were surveyed believe the IT industry would recover quicker than the US economy. Furthermore, a vast majority of CEOs feel 2010 would bring glad tidings for their industry. One can expect lesser job cuts in the near future as more than two thirds of tech bosses are not too keen on cost cutting.

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Posted 07/28/09 at 09:30:50 AM by Paul Lilly

Verizon on Monday said it plans to cut more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs before the end of the year in the wireline business, which it hopes will speed up efforts to keep costs in line, according to chief financial officer John Killian. But unlike in recent years, the company has no plans of offsetting the wireline layoffs with hiring in its wireless business.

"We probably will not have large-scale hiring until we're out of the recession," said Denny Strigl, Verizon's Chief Operating Officer.

The news comes after the nation's largest wireless carrier reported a 21 percent drop in second-quarter profit, although the company's earnings did creep slightly higher than Wall Street expectations. Verizon earned $1.48 billion, or 52 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30, down from $1.88 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $26.86 billion from $24.1 billion a year ago, which is what Wall Street had expected. Much of that increase can be attributed to the purchase of Alltel in January, otherwise revenue would have only increased 1.9 percent.

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