Sun Microsystems, 6000 job cuts and reorganises business

Sun Microsystems, 6000 job cuts and reorganises business

It seems that we only saw a part of the massive job cuts in the IT industry recently. Sun Microsystems released a statement for the press about their plans for adjusting to the "economical climate" and maximizing their incomes.

As it often occurs these days, the work force is the first that feels the crunch. Sun Microsystems plans to release 6000 workers. That is about 15-18% of their global workforce. Among those people is Rich Green, the Sun vice-president of software operations. Earlier this year, Sun cut 2500 people. Sun Microsystems recently filed a net loss of 1.7 billion dollars, and a drop of 7% each year.

The amount of money that Sun is going to save using the plan developed by the board of directors is between $700 and $800 million annually. Workforce cuts are integrated in that number by $500-$600 million.

The plan also includes some optimistic highlights, and aims that the company will target in the future. This should be achieved by forming two new business groups and a new group within Sun's existing systems business:

Application Platform Software - Will work on Sun's open source software for desktop, server and handheld devices, MySQL open source database products and GlassFish application server. In addition, this division will be responsible for Sun Learning services.

System Platforms - Will be lead by John Fowler, executive vice president. This will be the division responsible for Solaris, Virtualization (xVM and VirtualBox).

Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms - Responsible for implementing new technologies into all segments and following new trends. Dave Douglas, Senior Vice-president will be in charge of this group.