cuts

SAP plans job cuts, despite solid earnings

Even coming off a healthy quarter, business software titan SAP says it needs to cut costs for the coming year--and as elsewhere in the tech sector, that means job cuts.

SAP said Wednesday that for the fourth quarter, it had net income of 850 million euros ($1.1 billion) on revenue of 3.5 billion euros. Those figures represent a gain of 13 percent in net income and 8 percent in revenue year over year.

Revenue in software and software-related services at the Walldorf, Germany-based company was 2.7 billion euros, up 8 percent year over year.

For the full … Read more

It's a deal, dude: PS3 for $339 on Dell site

In the wake of unsubstantiated rumors that the PlayStation 3 would drop to $300 by April, we've seen sporadic reports that the 80GB PS3 is already being discounted to $339 at Dell.com, of all places. Apparently, the deal was on last week. Then it was off. And now it's back on.

You have to add the PS3 to your cart to get the discounted price, then tack on another $16 for 3- to 5-day shipping. If your employer happens to be part of the Dell Member Purchase Program, you can get an additional 7 percent off (-$… Read more

Sprint Nextel to cut 8,000 jobs

Sprint Nextel on Monday announced plans to cut approximately 8,000 jobs through the first quarter, as the economic meltdown cuts into the telecommunications carrier's business.

In addition, Sprint plans to suspend its 401k match in 2009, as well as continue with its salary freeze for a second year. The telecommunications carrier's tuition reimbursement program will also be suspended this year.

The workforce reduction is expected to result in a $300 million charge in the first quarter for severance payouts, but also is anticipated to save the company $1.2 billion in annualized labor costs.

Sprint said the … Read more

Technology salaries rise by 4.6 percent

Correction at 7 a.m. PST January 23: The 2006 growth rate in tech salaries was slightly off. It was 1.7 percent.

Salaries of tech professionals managed to spike up an average of 4.6 percent last year to $78,035, according to survey results released Thursday by tech career site Dice.com.

The survey results, ironically, come at a time when companies across corporate America are announcing layoffs, freezing wages, and even going so far as to temporarily institute wage cuts, like Advanced Micro Devices.

Dice, based on a survey of more than 19,000 respondents taken between … Read more

Intel cuts prices on some chips up to 48 percent

Updated on January 19 at 8:15 a.m. PST with additional information throughout.

On Sunday, Intel instituted broad price cuts on processors, spanning the Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium dual-core, Celeron, and Xeon product lines.

Some of the cuts are in response to Advanced Micro Devices' recently-introduced Phenom II "Dragon" desktop platform. AMD's Phenom II X4 940 (3.0GHz), for instance, is priced at $275.

Intel cuts were concentrated on quad-core chips like the Q9650 (3.00GHz), reduced 40 percent, to $316 from $530, to counter AMD's Phenom II. But Celeron processors received … Read more

Report: Oracle cuts workforce by 500

Oracle has sliced approximately 500 positions from its sales and consulting staff businesses in North America, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The positions, which would account for less than 2 percent of Oracle's North American workforce as of November, were cut on Friday, according to the Journal.

Oracle's reported layoffs come at a time when a number of companies across all industry sectors are slashing their workforce by double digits as the economy languishes in a recession.

And while other companies are making staff cuts amid steep declines in their revenues and earnings, Oracle'… Read more

Intel price cuts coming

Intel is planning price cuts to its lower-end mainstream quad-core processors on January 18.

Barron's Tech Trader Daily first reported the news, citing Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell.

These cuts are happening because of the recent introduction of Advanced Micro Devices' 45-nanometer Phenom II and "Shanghai" Opteron processors.

AMD's quad-core Phenom II "Dragon" processor platform has been garnering solid reviews and its Shanghai server chip has been adopted by top-tier server suppliers including Hewlett-Packard, Sun, Dell, IBM, and Fujitsu.

Cuts are expected mainly on quad-core processors, though other processors may also receive cuts.

Next big PS3 price cut set for April?

This rumor's pretty dubious, but several blogs are reporting that Sony plans to cut the PlayStation 3's price tag by $100 in April. That would put the 80GB PS3 at $300. The source: an analyst at Wedbush Morgan who's also saying that Microsoft will chop $50 off the Xbox 360 Pro around E3 2009 (in June), putting that system at $250.

When it comes to gaming systems, price drops are the equivalent of an economic stimulus plan, and breaking $300 would obviously make the PS3 attractive to a whole new batch of consumers, regardless of poor economic … Read more

OLPC slashes workforce in half, cuts salaries

The One Laptop Per Child project announced Wednesday that it is slashing its workforce by 50 percent, reducing salaries for the remaining staff, and restructuring its operations.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the group that aims to provide low-cost laptops to children in developing countries, announced the cuts in a company blog post:

Like many other nonprofits that are facing tough economic times, One Laptop per Child must downsize in order to keep costs in line with fewer financial resources. Today we are reducing our team by approximately 50% and there will be salary reductions for the remaining 32 people. While … Read more