Posted on 01/31/2009 8:01:23 AM PST by NRG1973
An inside source at Novell just informed me that Novell laid off a considerable percentage of its workforce on Friday, suggesting that "basically an across-the-board reduction of 25 percent" had been made. The news came in too late to seek comment from Novell, but I will try to get an update over the weekend.
These Novell layoffs add to the mounting woes of the already enfeebled technology industry, which has seen tens of thousands of employees lose their jobs.
Though Novell's layoffs may be the most extensive of any open-source company of which I'm aware, Novell is by no means alone: Sun has also announced an 18 percent reduction in headcount, while several of the most prominent open-source startups have more quietly laid off significant percentages of their own employees in an effort to achieve profitability more quickly than originally planned.
The leading open-source company, Red Hat, however, has yet to announce any layoffs.
While it's exceptionally painful and I hate unemployment (from terrible personal experience within my extended family), one thing is clear for Novell: it can and should be doing more with less. I've been saying for years that the company operates with far too much overhead. Novell has long been a meeting culture where some people exist solely to attend meetings.
These layoffs, horrible as they are for the individuals and families involved, position Novell to become a much more agile and tough competitor. Those who have lost their jobs will slowly feed into the various economies in which these people live, including Omniture, Infor, Symantec, and other companies with strong Utah presences (as well as companies in Waltham, India, and elsewhere that experienced the layoffs), and they and these companies will be the better for their presence.
But for Novell, it needed to pare back and force itself to compete lean and hungry.
so they’re down to 3 employees now?
Starting months ago.
IBM Quietly Cuts Thousands of Jobs
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/27/business/AP-IBM-Layoffs.html?_r=1
I remember a time when Novell was so omnipotent that they would charge the media for attending their press events.
Yep, long ago. It was Novell indirectly that brought me out to SV about 15yrs ago.
“Novell has long been a meeting culture where some people exist solely to attend meetings.
I didn’t think there were any companies like that left.
Back in the early 90s, my company had people who just sat on international standards commissions and things like that. No more.
Unfortunately yes and my company is one of them. Horrible email product that isn’t compatible with a ton of other things. But we use it because it was cheap and we didn’t wan’t to pay the Microsoft licensing.
I started a contract job with IBM a few months ago. Before the project was even a week old, they pulled the plug and all the contracts were canceled.
I liked this comment: “I’ve been saying for years that the company operates with far too much overhead. Novell has long been a meeting culture where some people exist solely to attend meetings.”
I think all big companies have units or parts of their organizations that seem to fit this description. If you’ve been cruising with one of those jobs, anywhere, you need to be nervous right now.
They posted a retraction on this article. Only 100 laid off.
Correction: Ian Bruce, Novell’s PR Director contacted me to let me know that fewer than 100 people have been laid-off worldwide, which represents less than 10 percent of the total workforce. Apologies to Novell for any misrepresentation.
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