Since the announcement of the mass layoffs from HP, rumors have been flying around as to exactly which departments are really going to get their doors closed.
A lot of rumors the past few days are speculating that HP is shutting down VoodooPC operations.
According to a credible inside source at the VoodooPC offices in Calgary, AB in Canada – Employees started getting layoff and severance packages today. Quoting our sources:
“A large number of employees were called for meetings with their superiors in private starting just before noon today. The meetings were classic of layoff procedures whereby employees were thanked for their time and contribution to the company. It appears that the technical support people were walked out while supervisory/managerial staff were asked to stick around and work more shifts”
Sources also claim that today was the first wave of layoffs and more were to follow the next day. Quoting another source:
“All VoodooPC operations in Canada are being shutdown permanently. It appears that HP will be approaching this situation in a similar fashion to how Dell handled its mass layoffs. Staged-reduction over a period of a few months.”
Sources were unsure however if this was a global action as not much information is being provided. When our sources asked for more information from their superiors, they were given very transparent answers that did not give much insight on a global closing or if it was strictly Canadian based.
VoodooPC founder and HP CTO Rahul Sood is normally the first to break any sort of news, but at time of writing his blog is still without mention of any changes to the HP Voodoo Business Unit. He did, however, say to Gizmodo, "HP is working on a plan to better leverage its existing resources to bring Voodoo products to market faster and make them more accessible to consumers. I can assure you that Voodoo employees and champions of the brand will continue to work on the conceptualization, design and development of Voodoo products," which basically translates to an affirmation that change already in the air.
HP spokeswoman Marlene Somsak had little to comment to CNET, saying only, "We continually assess and rebalance the size of our work force relative to the business environment and market conditions."
With the large amount of staff being shown the door by HP, the possibility of VoodooPC being closed entirely seems more and more real. We would imagine more and more employees will start talking over the next few days and possibly clarify even more as to what is going on.
