Sun to lay off another 3,000 employees

Sun Microsystems plans to cut as many as 3,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its global workforce, during the next year as it prepares for Oracle's takeover of the company.

The cuts, revealed on Tuesday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, represent the second major round of layoffs in a year for the server maker. Sun announced restructuring plans last November to cut up to 6,000 jobs this year, or 18 percent of its global workforce.

Those cuts were disclosed before Oracle announced its $7.4 billion bid for Sun in April, following Sun's rejection of overtures from IBM. IBM was still interested in Sun and somewhat blindsided by Oracle's move, a source told CNET News at the time.

The U.S. Justice Department approved the takeover in August, but the merger still requires approval by the European Commission, which is concerned that the deal could threaten competition in the database market in the European Economic Area (EEA), an association composed of 30 European countries. The Commission has until January 19 to make a final decision on the merger.

Meanwhile, the delay is causing financial turmoil for Sun's business. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said at an industry gathering in Silicon Valley last month, "Sun is losing $100 million a month; we'd like to get this thing done."

The acquisition is part of a change in thinking for Oracle, which, at one time, eschewed mergers but has gone on a buying spree in recent years, gobbling up PeopleSoft and many other software companies. Ellison at one time specifically rejected the notion of buying Sun.

Sun said in the filing that it expects to take $75 million to $125 million in restructuring charges over the next several quarters.

An Oracle representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

[stocklirider]

Its time we start taxing businesses that layoff employees. Tax these guys for poorly managing their employee base. Use the revenue generated to give tax incentives for companies to hire more people.

Problem solved. The economy will never rebound until people feel secure that they won't lose their job due to reasons out of their control.

Furloughs, employee pay cuts, those things are fine if times are tough for a company, because atleast you'll still have a job! But cutting people all together is just savage by today's standards... I'm surprised we aren't focusing on this more than this stupid health care fiasco.

[alegr]

Yes, tax them further into death, so they won't be able to afford even more workers.

I suggest a corp tax on the senior management compensation, instead.

[stocklirider]

It would make them think twice about laying people off as a knee jerk reaction.

Laying off hurts everyone and can be avoided by cutting pay or furloughs.

Problem is businesses hire based on deadlines. Hire a bunch of people to get this product out the door quickly... product gets released... oh, whoops, we cant support you all anymore, good bye.

You can't even live a normal life anymore with the lack of job security these days. How do you expect people to own a house, develop relationships with the people in their town etc, if you are practically counting down the day till you get laid off due to the cyclical nature of corporations these days.

[pentest]

Forcing corporations into paying their fair share would be a good start. Close the loophole that allows American corporations to all register at the same address in the Carribean to avoid paying taxes.

[Renegade Knight]

You have a point that a company than can lay people off overhired when tiems were good. Beyond that, it's no place for a tax.

[joetesta70]

Sun is still in business? How could the "dot" in "dot com" be laying people off.

Time to move to Florida with DEC, Novell and Silicon Graphics.

[TxTom21]

Novell is not dead as the other two in your post are. They're not all they were, but they're certainly not dead.

[QuetzalcoatlUSA]

Larry Ellison is a ******, plain and simple. He could care less how many jobs are lost or how many lives he has to ruin - as long as his company can continue to gobble up smaller every small competitor Oracle has. Good luck to all those people at Sun.

[Mr. Dee]

I just heard the sound of the toilet flushing, SUN a s tool.

[jessiethe3rd]

lol... niceeeeeeee

[42istheanswer]

They'll be kept around to provide the illusion of competition in the server market. Keeps the DOJ off the backs of the big boys.

[rdupuy11]

IBM couldn't have made out better. They didn't have to pay 7.4 billion and they are taking Sun's customers.

The problem is not simply that Sun is about to be taken over by a software company with no experience in the hardware business, its also long standing issues at Sun.

Take their whole flash initiative. It's really unimpressive, and if you go beyond their marketing spec's to the real latency specs....the picture gets worse, the more you know about it, in my opinion.

II mean look at StorageSearch.com and their take on Sun Flash....its last years technology, today! wooo!

What about Sparc? languishing.

It's not fun to deal with a desparate company...I'm sorry but they've said things to me, I don't find fully honest and forthright. I can only imagine they are too desparate to make the next sale.

[SactoGuy018]

The combination of cheap "blade" servers, cheap Linux server distributions, and IBM's aggressive pushing of running Linux on server machines sold/leased from IBM is why Sun is taking a beating.

[weegg]

So long MySQL....sigh

[pentest]

MySQL isn't going anywhere. Yeah, Java and hardware were the main attractions for Oracle, but MySQL will allow Oracle to compete in other markets that they can't without it or without dilute their overpriced DB.

[inachu1]

That means the ones not fired will not be home for christmas.
they will be too busy training people who do not wear deoderant.

[pentest]

Um, what?

[pokiri]

" training people who do not wear deoderant"
==> I think you meant H1B guys from a 3rd world country ?