Corporate & legal

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

Cisco CEO beats on the consumer electronics drum

LAS VEGAS--Cisco Systems plans to focus on the consumer market a lot more in the next three to five years, the company's CEO John Chambers said Wednesday during the company's press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show.

This increased focus will likely mean a "steady stream of product announcements, partnership announcements and acquisitions" from the company as it grows this market, Chambers said.

Cisco initially got into the home networking business in 2003 with its acquisition of Linksys and it increased its presence a couple of years later with the acquisition of set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta. … Read more

EMC to cut 2,400 from workforce

Storage giant EMC on Wednesday announced plans to cut 2,400 positions from its workforce, despite expectations of posting record fourth-quarter revenues.

The job cuts will represent 7 percent of the company's workforce, as part of a restructuring program that will also include consolidation of facilities and back office functions, and a rebalancing of products and markets.

EMC expects to cut $350 million in costs this year and as much as $500 million next year.

The cost cuts come as the company issued its preliminary fourth quarter forecast, in which it noted it expects to generate approximately $4 billion … Read more

Police use GPS, Google Maps to locate missing girl

Massachusetts police used cell phone tracing via GPS and Google Maps to track down a 9-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported on Wednesday.

Police arrested the 52-year-old grandmother at a motel in Natural Bridge, Va., on Tuesday after she allegedly failed to return her granddaughter to the home of her legal guardians in Athol, Mass., the report said. The grandmother had picked up the child for a weekend visit on Saturday and allegedly threatened to not return her, according to the report.

With help from the cell phone provider, authorities were … Read more

Outsourcing shifts beyond Bangalore, Mumbai

India's traditional outsourcing centers appear to be falling out of favor.

According to Pierre Audoin Consultants, outsourcing companies are increasingly looking outside Bangalore and Mumbai when choosing bases in which to set up shop.

PAC found that while India remains popular with the top 50 outsourcing companies--11 of the 49 new offshoring delivery centers set up in 2008 were based in the country--vendors are progressively creating more bases in cities such as Chennai, Noida, Hyderabad, and Pune.

According to Nick Mayes, a senior consultant at PAC, conditions for outsourcers in Bangalore and Mumbai are no longer as favorable as … Read more

Report: Microsoft beats out Yahoo, Google on Verizon deal

Microsoft is preparing to announce Wednesday it has been selected as the search provider for Verizon mobile phones, beating out archrival Google and Yahoo, according to a Reuters report.

Yahoo shares spiked during mid-day trading as news surfaced that Verizon had chosen a mobile search provider, but then fell back to earth after the Microsoft disclosure.

There has been much speculation over the past year about who would sign the coveted search deal with Verizon, which is expected to overtake AT&T as the No. 1 U.S. carrier after Verizon closes on its purchase of Alltel, Reuters said. … Read more

Intel warning casts cloud over CES

Intel's fourth-quarter warning is not only bad news but bad timing. With the Consumer Electronics Show kicking off Thursday adorned by all those bright, shiny gadgets, Intel effectively said: gadgets maybe, but not so bright and shiny.

And for an Intel warning, this one was particularly dire. The biggest chip bellwether said it now expects only $8.2 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 23 percent drop from the year-earlier period, and 20 percent from the third quarter. And this comes after issuing a warning on November 12.

So what's happening? The clearest example of the gloom … Read more

Satyam chairman resigns amid accounting scandal

Satyam Computer Services announced Wednesday its founder and chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, has resigned, following an admission that he inflated its financial performance.

Satyam, one of India's six largest IT outsourcing companies, counts such Fortune 500 companies as Sony among its customers.

The company said it received a letter from its chairman on Wednesday, outlining some of the accounting irregularities and his resignation.

While Satyam did not include a copy of the letter in its announcement, a report in The Wall Street Journal contains a copy of the letter.

Raju noted in his letter that Satyam's balance sheet … Read more

AMD chipmaking spinoff gets OK from U.S.

Advanced Micro Devices' manufacturing spinoff got an all-clear from the U.S. government on Tuesday.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), part of the U.S. Treasury Department, gave the green light to AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) to create The Foundry Company, the manufacturing operations that AMD spun off back in October.

CFIUS has also determined that "the proposed additional investment in AMD by Mubadala is not a covered transaction subject to CFIUS review," according to AMD.

ATIC will own 65.8 percent of The Foundry Company and AMD 34.… Read more