Posted 11/19/09 at 11:45:38 AM by Paul Lilly

Today's WTF moment is brought to you by AOL. The struggling ISP recently told investors it would spend $200 million trimming down a large portion of its staff, but up until now, the suits in charge didn't say how they planned to do it. According to CEO Tim Armstrong, AOL is looking for "up to 2,500 volunteers," CNet reports.

Raising your hand for a pink slip doesn't quite have the same effect as barging into the boss man's office and telling him to to 'take this job and shove it,' so we're curious how AOL's volunteer program plays out.

The 'step forward and enjoy the holidays on unemployment' program begins on December 4, just a few days before AOL spins off from Time Warner. So in other words, AOL employees must choose whether to leave on their own free will and start the job hunt right away, or roll the dice and hope they won't end up with a pink slip anyway as AOL moves to cut its annual operating expenses by $300 million. Sounds about as much fun as Russian Roulette, but hey, at least the investors are happy.

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Posted 11/10/09 at 07:21:26 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Things aren’t looking great for AOL as it is in the process of shaking Time Warner loose. The once dominant internet company has announced that 100 layoffs will be happening soon. After that AOL plans to ask for voluntary departures, possibly with some sort of buyout system. If that doesn’t produce the desired results, employees can expect heads to roll.

In an earnings call last week, Time Warner reported that AOL revenues were down 23 percent from last year. Sources say that those figures mean AOL will need to cut about 1000 jobs through various means. The larger layoffs could coincide with AOL’s departure from Time Warner. It will be a rough holiday season for some AOL employees. It almost makes you miss the golden age of the free AOL disk.

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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 10/21/09 at 12:25:08 PM by Paul Lilly

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, Sun revealed it plans to eliminate up to 3,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its global workforce, ZDNet Asia reports.

This marks the second major round of job cuts in a year for Sun, who last November announced plans to reduce its workforce by up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global staff, in a major restructuring effort. Those cuts were already disclosed by the time Oracle announced its $7.4 billion takeover bid for the struggling server maker.

As the Oracle deal sits in limbo awaiting approval from the European Commission things could get even worse for Sun.

"Sun is losing $100 million a month, we'd like to get this thing done," Larry Ellison, CEO for Oracle, said at an industry gathering in Silicon Valley last month.

Oracle has so far remained quiet about the latest round of job cuts taking place at Sun.

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Posted 06/15/09 at 04:56:17 PM by Andy Salisbury

MySpace recently got a new CEO in Owen Van Natta, and according to reports, they may have a few more problems to deal with than they’d originally thought.

“The business is in a lot worse shape than Fox Interactive was positioning,” stated an anonymous source. According to a report, while MySpace’s old CEO Chris DeWolfe boasted loudly about their 120 million unique visitors, the real numbers are nowhere near. And, it’s being reported that when Google renews their $900 million advertising deal with MySpace, they’ll only guarantee $50 million per year, cutting MySpace’s ad revenue in half from $600 million to $300 million.

It’s expected that the new head honcho will make some huge layoffs, possibly cutting down their 1,500 employees in half to just 750 (but hey, it’s News Corp, how would that not be expected?).

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Posted 04/11/09 at 09:08:19 PM by Justin Kerr

As if the 5,000 laid off at Microsoft weren’t enough of a warning signal that times are tough, the Redmond based software giant is also being forced to close down its on campus bar just a few days before its official opening. The pub was set to debut alongside several other retail outlets offering everything from cell phones, to haircuts, but apparently it didn’t make the final cut.

You would think with all the layoffs that were recently announced, they would want somewhere employees could go and drown their sorrows, but according to Microsoft Spokesman Lou Gellows, "We had to take another look at this. We are sensitive to the business environment and that meant not having a pub."

This cut is but one of many in a larger initiative designed to deal with non essential expenses. Employees are encouraged to look for ways to save on everything from external vendors, to travel expenses. The pub which was scheduled to launch on Monday had already hired staff, and had installed beer taps. Not exactly the long weekend they were hoping for I would imagine.

Times are tough, but even if people aren’t buying Vista, they’re still buying beer aren’t they?

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Posted 02/24/09 at 09:04:43 AM by Paul Lilly

Microsoft made headlines yesterday when it was discovered the company had been asking some of the 1,400 employees it laid off last month to pay back money it had overpaid as part of their severance. The letter blamed the mistake on an "inadvertent administrative error," which had our readers divided on whether or not Microsoft was justified in asking for the money back. Reader 'Phated1' pointed out how even a small overpayment could add up if multiplied by a large number of employees, but the best reader comment came from 'punditguy':

"Now I'll have to redo my Silicon Valley edition of Monopoly: 'Microsoft Error in Your Favor. Pay $200.'"

While a Microsoft spokesperson at first refused to offer any details saying it was a "private matter between the company and the affected people," the software maker is now saying it will not pursue trying to get its money back, perhaps figuring out the alternative is not worth the bad publicity.

"Last week, 25 former Microsoft employees were informed that they were overpaid as a part of their severance payments from the company," Microsoft wrote in a statement. "This was a mistake on our part. We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner. We are reaching out to those impacted to relay that we will not seek any payment from those individuals."

According to Microsoft human resources chief Lisa Brummel, the 25 former Microsoft employees received, on average, about $4,000 or $5,000 in extra pay. An additional 20 former employees were underpaid, and Microsoft said it will immediately reimburse them.

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