Sun to Lay Off 1,500 This Week
Amid all the hubbub about who’s buying Sun, who should buy Sun, who was asked if they wanted to buy Sun and whatever else, the company has laid off 1,500 employees as part of November’s restructuring plans.
Late in 2008, Sun Microsystems announced business alignment in light of the global economic downturn. These plans would mean between 15 and 18 percent of Sun’s global workforce would be let go. Jon Schwartz, the company’s CEO said Sun was taking sharp, decisive action to align itself to a new economic reality but “also to amplify our investment in the way the world is heading.” 1,300 were laid off in January and according to AllThingsD, the company is set to lay off another 1,500 members of staff sometime this week.
“Sun announced a global workforce reduction of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 employees, representing approximately 15% to 18% of the Company’s global workforce,” Sun reminded press in a statement. “In January, layoff notifications were given to approximately 1,300 employees as part of that action. This week, Sun can confirm that notifications are being given to approximately 1,500 as part of this effort,” the company said.
While the company says the realignment is all to do with how much the economy is really biting the big one these days, one can’t help but feel it’s getting closer to a big sale. Whenever an acquisition goes through, cutbacks are inevitable. At the very least there will always be an overlap of personnel when it comes to HR staff, call centre employees and cafeteria workers. Is Sun dieting to make itself more attractive to potential buyers?
Check out the full statement from Sun on AllThingsD.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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The Sun may be setting and the dark spectre of IBM may be coming to drag the body across the River Styx, but the SPARC cpu will forever be a better cpu than the latest bread and circus bits from Intel.Reply
I think AMD died when they sold out to ATIC and we can talk about them in the past tense now.
Funny how Tom's never covers real enterprise computing - but everyone loves a tragedy in the news. IT geeks included.