Excite@Home lays off 13 percent of staff

Excite@Home, a major high-speed Internet company that is refocusing and conserving cash, has informed 380 workers, or 13 percent of its work force, that they will be laid off Tuesday.

The layoffs mark the second series of cutbacks this year for the broadband service provider, which trimmed 8 percent of its staff in January.

Because of a suffering online advertising market, Excite@Home recently warned Wall Street that its 2001 revenue would be weaker than expected. The company also said it is facing a cash crunch and is looking to reduce expenses and find new sources of funding.

Before being replaced last week by incoming Chief Executive Patti Hart, former CEO George Bell indicated that layoffs were likely.

"We decided that we needed to move forward with layoffs to conserve cash," said Excite@Home spokeswoman Alison Bowman. "All divisions of the company were affected, but media has been impacted more heavily."

The majority of the layoffs were confined to the company's narrowband Internet content properties, such as the Excite.com Web portal; Blue Mountain Arts, an online greeting card service; and MatchLogic, an online advertising tracking service.

The company in recent months has begun focusing its efforts almost exclusively on its broadband cable modem service, which claims more than 3.2 million customers.

Workers from the company's Redwood City, Calif., headquarters, as well as from offices in New York and Colorado, will be affected by the layoffs.

Details on the workers' severance packages were not disclosed. Excite@Home will have 2,470 employees after the layoffs.