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News in Brief

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Applied Materials to lay off 1,000



With a drop in demand for computer chips, Applied Materials, the biggest
supplier of equipment used to make computer chips, announced it was laying off

1,000 workers. The reduction amounting nearly 4.5 per cent of the staff will at

its units in Santa Clara and Texas. Applied said the cuts will be implemented by

not filling current job openings and natural attrition, rather than sacking

workers en masse. The company will also offer attractive package for workers

willing to quit. Intel, Applied's biggest customer, announced a cut back in

spending only two weeks after first announcing an increase in February. Among

other things, Intel said it was suspending a $2.2 billion expansion of its

Ireland chip plant until 2002. - SVNS

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Solectron to shed 8,200 employees



Solectron, the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronic systems
and sub-systems has announced 8,200 job cuts, roughly 10 per cent of the firm's

entire workforce. The move comes in the wake of a sharp drop in sales order from

customers such as Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and IBM. Earlier, Solectron and

rivals such as Celestica and Flextronics International said the current economic

slowdown was driving more companies towards using contract manufacturers in

order to focus more on product development and sales. But apparently the new

business is not compensating for a sharp drop in business from the existing

customers. Solectron also said that its net income rose 26 per cent to $121.9

million in the most recent quarter while sales rose 85 per cent to $5.42 billion

from $2.92 billion. But in the past several weeks, business has suffered major

decline. - SVNS

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Creative Tech to retrench 10% work force



SINGAPORE: Computer peripheral maker Creative Technology said on Monday that
it would cut about 10 per cent of its worldwide work force and close a plant in

Pennsylvania in an effort to rein in expenses. The company said it will take a

$15 million to $20 million one-time restructuring charge related to the

cutbacks, in addition to a write-down of about $65 million against its

investment portfolio in the third quarter. Creative reiterated its guidance of

$260 million to $270 million in revenue for the third quarter. In cost-cutting

initiatives, it said it will close a manufacturing plant in Malvern, Pa.,

consolidate manufacturing efforts at its Singapore facilities and make

"sharp cutbacks" in its non-revenue generating Internet businesses.

— Reuters

Philips, Sun Micro pact on MPEG-4 data compression



AMSTERDAM: Dutch Philips Electronics NV said on Monday that it planned to expand
cooperation with US network computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc on MPEG-4 data

compression technology. MPEG-4 technology, the successor to MPEG-2, is a

standard to shrink the size of multimedia files so that interactive video

services can be transmitted more quickly to computers, mobile devices and

television set-top boxes. The two companies have signed a non-binding agreement

to share technology that will make it easier to swap broadband media such as

video or film between a wider range of their products. The firms have already

demonstrated how MPEG-4 content, encoded by Philips' WebCine Encoder, can be

transferred to a Sun Enterprise server and then replayed over the network to a

variety of clients, it added. - Reuters

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iMediation, Siebel tie-up on management software



SAN FRANCISCO: Closely held iMediation, whose software helps big businesses sell
products online, said on Monday that it had struck a partnership with Siebel

Systems Inc. that includes integrating technologies and cross-selling products.

iMediation will integrate its iChannel product into Siebel's partner

relationship management software product by early summer, said iMediation

president and chief operating officer Bill Miller. IChannel allows different

companies to integrate online selling efforts seamlessly; resulting in

dynamically generated Web pages that can have the latest pricing and

availability information. The pact attempts to round out offerings in the market

for so-called partnership relationship management, or PRM, software. PRM

software lets companies who partner to jointly market and attend to

customer-service needs. - Reuters

Portal launched for HR professionals



NEW DELHI: Reach Interactive.com Pvt. Ltd has launched ureachus.com, a portal
dedicated to human resource management. The site has been jointly developed by

Swedish-based Feedback Reach and the Premchand Group. Ureachus.com is a full

service portal that provides a vast array of services in the Human Resource

Management area. The HR domain has been divided into 20 or more convenient

"practice areas" i.e, compensation management, training and

development, organizational design and development, etc. Some services on the

site will be made on payment and users can take individual or corporate

memberships. Membership can be yearly or half yearly. Dr. Parag Diwan, CEO,

Reach Interactive.com said that $2 million have been invested in the portal. The

revenue model will consist of the membership fee, revenue from the ASP model and

services rendered on the site. - CNS

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