Tuesday, June 16, 2009
MySpace | A Place for Layoffs
The ax has finally swung at MySpace. This morning the AOL of social networks announced plans to sack 30 percent of its workforce. All told, 420 workers will lose their jobs, reducing the size of the company’s staff to 1,000 employees. CEO Owen Van Natta’s all-hands memo, after the jump.
Latest Seagate Layoffs Offer Improved Capacity, Performance
Seagate is defragging its workforce again. The hard drive manufacturer said Wednesday that it plans to sack another 1,100 employees–2.5 percent of its workforce. These in addition to the nearly 3,000 workers it laid off earlier this year.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Agilent “Resizes” Employee Paychecks… to Zero
Black Thursday fell on more than just IBM today. Agilent also announced layoffs this morning. The company plans to sack 2,700 employees–14 percent of its workforce.
National Semi to Workforce: “What Color is Your Parachute?”
To see just how badly the continuing erosion of consumer confidence is affecting the chip industry, one need only look at the pitiable state of National Semiconductor. After announcing third-quarter revenues that were down 31 percent from the previous quarter and 36 percent from the same period a year earlier, the company said today it would sack more than a quarter of its workforce.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Seagate Defrags Workforce, Executive Team
“Terrible.” That was Seagate CEO Bill Watkins’s (at right, doing his Dr. Octopus impression) one-word description of the disk drive maker’s December sales last week–and apparently one of his final public comments as Chief Executive as well. This morning Seagate said that Watkins is handing the CEO reins over to Chairman Stephen Luczo and that the two will confer over the next week to “determine what role, if any, Mr. Watkins will have at the company going forward.”
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
What the Hell’s Going On With Sun?
Who said the M&A market is dead? Sun Microsystems said this morning that it has acquired Q-layer, a company that automates cloud computing deployments. Meanwhile, Sun shares have been trading higher for a few days now, inexplicably up about 20 percent vs. Nasdaq, which isn’t doing nearly as well.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Report: Microsoft May or May Not Announce Layoffs
With the economy continuing to sour and consumer tech spending slowing, speculation is running rampant that Microsoft may soon join the sad conga line of tech companies announcing layoffs. According to an unsubstantiated, poorly sourced report currently making the rounds, Redmond is steeling itself for a massive staff reduction.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Uninstall Microsoft Workforce Service Pack?
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Tech may be done with layoffs for 2008, but 2009 is another matter entirely. Now that the souring economy has had its way with Yahoo and AMD and Palm and Sun and Nortel, it’s moving on to bigger fare. We’ve already heard predictions that Google will sack as much as 15 percent of its workforce next year. Now come rumors that Microsoft is steeling itself for large-scale job cuts as well.
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About John
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Ethics Statement
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
alt.misc
- Godzilla’s Food, Exercise, and Dream Diary
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183. - Scenes From An Alternate Universe Where The Beatles Accepted Lorne Michaels’ Generous Offer
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
- The Golden Age of Video
Best video mashup ever.
- I’m not dead yet
A Facebook Memorial
- Pulp Fiction Audio Mix
Wow.
- A world without the Internet
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
- Google Wave Cinema: Pulp Fiction
Excellent.
- Dead Fly Art
Flughumor!
- Happy Birthday Monty Python …
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
- ‘You are being shagged by a rare parrot’
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.




