Items tagged with Layoffs
Mozilla has announced that it has let go of several employees via an official blog post. In the post, titled "Readying for the Future at Mozilla," Mitchell Baker, Mozilla Chairwoman and interim CEO, wrote that Mozilla has to do two things in this era including continuing to excel in its current work and innovating in areas most likely to impact the state of the internet and internet life in the future. Baker wrote that to change the future requires doing things differently and the allocation of resources for that purpose. While Mozilla is making a significant investment to fund innovation, it says it has had "to make some difficult" choices that led to the elimination of roles at the company....
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Despite all of the hype and excitement surrounding virtual reality over the past couple of years, the market for VR has not grown at the pace Nokia had anticipated or hoped it would. As a result, the company has decided to 'optimize' its investments in VR, starting with halting development of Ozo, a 360-degree VR camera that debuted at $60,000 before receiving a price cut to $45,000. The company is also reducing its workforce as it pivots to digital health. "Nokia Technologies is at a point where, with the right focus and investments, we can meaningfully grow our footprint in the digital health market, and we must seize that opportunity," said Gregory Lee, president of Nokia Technologies. "While...
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Seagate Technology may be raking in the dough, but it is still letting employees go. The company estimated fourth-quarter revenue higher than Wall Street expectations, however, it will lay of 6,500 employees by the end of the fiscal year of 2017.Seagate Technology is an American data storage company best known for its hard drive disks (HDD). In just 2016 alone, Seagate announced the world's fastest and slimmest 2.5-inch HDD and debuted the world’s fastest NVMe SSD with 10GBps throughput. Seagate headquarters in Cupertino, CaliforniaSeagate, however, has also faced a lot of heat. In February the company was entangled in a class action lawsuit for defective 3TB internal and external HDD’s. A reliability...
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Despite being the world's largest maker of mobile semiconductors for smartphones and feature phones, the future of Qualcomm is now in question. All eyes will be on Qualcomm as when it reports its fiscal third-quarter results tomorrow, as that's when it may announce what options it's considering to turn things around, including a potential breakup.According to The Wall Street Journal, activist investor Jana Partners LLC has been pushing for major changes at Qualcomm, hence why it's now considering a spinoff of its operations as well as other options. Jana holds a $2 billion stake in Qualcomm and wants the company to explore a number of possible movies, including cost cutting measures, repurchasing...
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There’s a lot of positive energy flowing through Microsoft these days. The company by all accounts won E3 with the unveil of a new 1TB Xbox One console, a swanky new “Elite” wireless Xbox One controller, and backwards compatibility support for Xbox 360 games. And we can’t forget the July 29 release of Windows 10, which is the highly anticipated follow-up to Windows 8.1. However, there are also a few dark clouds heading towards Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington headquarters and they are zeroing in on the company’s smartphone division. Microsoft today announced another round of job cuts, this time totaling 7,800 employees. This is on top of the 18,000 cuts that it already announced last year. As...
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BlackBerry, or the company formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM) if you prefer, has a seemingly endless playbook filled with strategies to keep the company afloat. A name change is just one of many things the company has tried, in addition to hiring new leaders, launching new products, and when things get really bad, laying off workers. Apparently things are really bad. The struggling smartphone company confirmed on Friday plans to reduce its workforce by an untold number of employees. BlackBerry currently employs around 7,000 workers around the world, though that number will shrink as it looks to "consolidate device software, hardware, and applications" businesses. Here's a look at the...
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Later this year, auction site eBay and its wholly owned online payment subsidiary PayPal will split into two different companies, and as they prepare to do that, several employees are being handed pink slips. The two divisions have reportedly begun notifying affected employees, most of which have been participating in projects that didn't turn out the way eBay hoped.According to Recode and the "multiple sources" it spoke with, some of the PayPal employees who lost their jobs were in sales or held product roles in the division that was in charge of getting restaurants and small retail stores to accept PayPal. Part of that initiative included rolling out mobile payment options and special credit...
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AOL has gone into restructuring mode and is preparing to lay off staff, as well as shut down several of its prominent website properties. At present, it's being reported that AOL is likely to turn out the lights at its primary gaming site Joystiq, and the The Unofficial Apple Weblog, better known as TUAW. However, several others could also get the axe. TechCrunch, another AOL property, seems to have the skinny on much of what's going on, though contends it's "not privy to what happens at a corporate level." Much of the information it's reporting on has come by way of an anonymous tip, which prompted the site to ask around, poking and prodding its own collection of sources. Image Source:...
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Back on October of last year, Sony said it planned to eliminate 1,000 jobs in its mobile division. Now three months later, Sony crunched the numbers and is reportedly going to hand out an additional 1,000 pink slips, the latest of which will mostly affect its smartphone operations in Europe and China, according to reports. By the time Sony is finished laying off workers, the company's mobile division will be left with 5,000 employees, representing a 30 percent reduction by the end of the company's fiscal year ending March 2016. Image Source: Flickr (Kārlis Dambrāns) Many prominent smartphone manufacturers are having trouble competing in the cutthroat market. Samsung and Apple sell the most handsets,...
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Although IBM appears to be on the verge of major jobs cut, details are slim. Forbes columnist Robert Cringely reported last week that about 26 percent of IBM’s existing workforce of 431,000 employees would receive unwelcome phone calls from their managers this week. According to the report, cuts would likely be complete by the end of February as part of the reorganization project codenamed Project Chrome. But while additional stories following the initial Forbes report of over 100,000 employee layoffs have run pretty much unchecked for the past few days, IBM is offering a bit of pushback on that lofty figure. In an emailed statement, the company fired back: IBM...
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Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf will have plenty of opportunities to practice his Donald Trump impersonation as the company gets ready to hand out approximately 600 pink slips. The layoffs come as Qualcomm faces regulatory investigations into its business practices in three different territories -- China, European Union, and the United States -- though the world's biggest mobile chip player insists the two are not related. Instead, Qualcomm is laying off workers in an attempt to restructure its business. The company also plans to shuffle its teams and projects, as its outlook for 2015 wasn't anything to get too excited about. For a company that specializes in mobile hardware, one of the hottest...
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Rovio Entertainment is following through with its plan to make significant workforce reductions this year. The cuts, which Rovio first announced in early October, will remove 110 employees. As part of the reorganization, the Angry Birds game developer is closing its Tampere, Finland studio and moving many positions to Espoo, Finland. The cuts come as Rovio is promoting its upcoming Angry Birds movie, which is expected to hit theaters in July. Image Credit: RovioInitially, Rovio planned to cut 130 employees, which would have amounted to about 16% of its 800-person worldwide workforce. After negotiations with its employees, Rovio has reduced that number to 110 job cuts,...
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As expected, heads are rolling at Samsung, though company co-chief and mobile business boss J.K. Shin didn't get the axe as some had speculated. Instead, three other high-level executives were thanked for their services and shown the door as Samsung reshuffles its core management team in an attempt to return its mobile unit into a booming business. "Shin has made significant contributions in helping Samsung to become the global number one in the mobile market," Lee June, Samsung Group communications chief, said during a media briefing, according to The Korea Herald. "The president will have another chance to reinvigorate the mobile business in a new business environment." We'll let the analysts...
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Hot on the heels of Microsoft issuing a second wave of layoffs, Toshiba announced that it too will be handing out pink slips. The reason? Apparently the consumer PC market is just too damn volatile, so Toshiba plans to accelerate its restructuring effort that will ultimately see a reduced presence in that market and an increased focus on the "profitable B2B field," or business-to-business segment. Toshiba said it plans to expand its range of business PCs, including its workstations and tablet PCs. It will also be more active in promoting the Internet of Things (IoT), a market Toshiba is confident it can compete in due to its strengths and experience in various PC technologies, such as BIOS, security,...
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In an internal memo to employees, BlackBerry CEO John Chen essentially told the company's remaining workers that they can exhale, the worst is behind them, including layoffs. Not only that, but Chen said he plans to hire workers in specific areas, which is somewhat surprising after BlackBerry just finished shrinking its workforce by around 60 percent over the past three years. "We have completed the restructuring notification process, and the workforce reduction that began three years ago is now behind us," Chen stated in the memo. It's been a long and rough road for BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM), which has tried numerous tactics to reinvent itself. No longer...
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Microsoft's plans to lay off some 18,000 employees have caused ripples in the tech industry -- it's one of the largest layoffs ever announced at a major IT company -- and some of those ripples have spread to Capitol Hill. On Friday, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala) tore into Microsoft for the hypocrisy of pushing for more H1-B visas while it simultaneously laid off thousands of workers. Sessions blasted a recent op-ed by Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Sheldon Adelson in which the three industry titans called for Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, noting that: What did we see in the newspaper today? News from Microsoft—was it that they are having to raise wages to try...
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No company ever announces job cuts by saying, “We’re scuttling thousands of jobs, and that sucks, but that’s business”. Microsoft’s version of tap-dancing around the nasty business of layoffs is an email from CEO Satya Nadella titled “Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture” wherein he announced that the company will cut some 18,000 jobs from its workforce over the next year, which is a move that we expected. Calling it “The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce”, Nadella said that many of the cuts are coming from the Nokia Devices and Services division as the company figures out...
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It's been a tough year for PC makers in general (Lenovo notwithstanding), some of which were caught off guard by the mainstream market's infatuation with mobile devices. There have been signs that traditional computer sales may rebound a bit in 2014, but in the meantime, at least one PC maker is looking at cutting staff heading into the New Year. That company is Hewlett-Packard. According to Reuters, HP stated in a regulatory filing that it plans to eliminate 5,000 more jobs, bringing the tally to 34,000 layoffs. That represents 11 percent of HP's total workforce, which is higher than the OEM originally anticipated. Image Source: Flickr (courtneyism) Previously, HP estimated it would slash 29,000...
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In the early days of Android, HTC practically had a license to print money. We don't mean that literally, mind you, but quarter after quarter, HTC's revenues and profits continued to soar as it capitalized on what was fast becoming the most popular mobile operating system the world had ever seen. Certainly the landscape is different now, and instead of HTC sitting on top of the Android world, Samsung now rules the universe with its Galaxy line. HTC also faces stiff competition from Apple in the grand scheme of mobile, though that was always the case. Things have changed, and rather than rolling in the dough, HTC is making tough decisions, such as laying off 20 percent of its HTC America division,...
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Nintendo has seen better days. There's some doubt among analysts about the Wii U's ability to compete with Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One consoles, and though the game maker found itself back in black earlier this year, the company missed its forecast and posted an operating loss of around $366 million. Nevertheless, Nintendo employees need not panic, at least not yet. Company president Satoru Iwata made it clear that he has no intention of laying off employees for a short-term gain in numbers. He's very conscious of worker morale and the effect it has on game development. Image Source: Flickr (Official GDC) "If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial...
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The heady days of FarmVille are a distant memory for Zynga, and it’s still smarting from its ill-fated OMGPOP acquisition (as in, Draw Something, the game you played for a few weeks and then forgot). Today, Zynga released 520 workers, which is about 18 percent of its staff. The workforce reductions aren’t entirely a surprise. Zynga has said publicly that cuts would be coming. In a press release, the company estimated it would save $70 to $80 million with the workforce reductions. It also announced the closure of “various office locations.” Those locations appear to be studios Dallas, Los Angeles and New York. Layoffs at the beleaguered game company aren’t over yet...
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Electronic Arts is slashing more jobs yet again, and to make matters worse (or at least more annoying), the company isn’t releasing many details about the who, what, where, and when of those layoffs. Instead of coming right out and saying publicly what’s happening, EA posted this incredibly vague “organizational update” on its blog: In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile. This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations. We are extremely grateful for the contributions made by each of our employees – those that are leaving EA will be missed by their...
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