Sun Microsystems is to cut between 1,500 and 2,500 jobs after an unexpected $34 million three months loss.

The company had posted a profit of $67 million in the same period last year, and the company is blaming the losses on costs associated with its takeover of MySQL and lower than expected sales in the U.S. with actual revenues falling only half a percent from $3.283 billion to $3.266 billion.

"I’m disappointed," said chief executive Jonathan Schwartz. "The U.S. economy presented Sun with significant challenges in the third quarter, masking our progress in developing nations and economies across the world," The slowing U.S. market is impacting on many companies, with Sun seeing the sharpest drop-off in orders from the government, retailers and telecoms firms.

In order to recoup its losses and refocus, Sun will now cut between 1,500 and 2,500 of its 33,500 strong workforce. Details of the cuts will follow, including where the jobs will go.

With the slowing of the U.S. economy we can expect to see more losses, profit warnings and, ultimately, job losses. For the moment however the slowdown seems to be confined to the U.S. market, though it will spread eventually into other developed and developing markets as well.

Source : Tom's Hardware