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
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
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
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