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| 2008/11/14-26 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Computer/SW/OS/Solaris] UID:51970 Activity:moderate |
11/13 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/14/financial/f051352S72.DTL http://preview.tinyurl.com/6nngpm Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as sales of its high-end computer servers have collapsed. The drastic move announced Friday highlights Sun's desperation to cut costs and survive as an independent company. Sun's shares have fallen so steeply they've crossed an ominous threshold, driving the company's market value below its cash on hand. That means investors believe the company itself is essentially worthless. lulz is this because of open source and linuz? \_ If Sun goes down, what happens to Mysql? \_ Who cares? \_ I care a little. You may mock Mysql, but it is used by freakin' everyone these days. \_ Someone will buy Sun. heck if they're worthless, maybe I can buy Sun. I've been refraining from double lattes. \_ Sun has become DEC. It was a sad day when Compaq bought DEC. It will be a sad day when Dell or its equivalent buys Sun. -ex-Sun \_ Is this because they opensources Solaris? How do opensource companies make money again? \_ it has nothing to do with Solaris being open. \_ I am a Sun guy. I guess I am on the software-side of the house, so things are not as bad as the headline says. \_ IBM could buy Sun right now outright, lay everyone off, keep the contracts, and pay for the acquisition with the cash inside of Sun. "lulz" \_ shut up paolo \_ Bush is responsible for state of current economy! Free Tibet \_ shut up emarkp \_ You forgot to add "Iraq War" and "lolz", troll. \_ I am a Sun guy. I guess I am on the software-side of the house, so things are not as bad as the headline says. \_ As a ex-Sun employee I am not surprised. Sun has been mismanaged for 10+ years, and is full of deadwood and useless middle managers. Even this job cut won't be enough for the company to survive. Pony tail boy needs to reduce the work force down to about 10K and put an end to the java religion w/in the company is to survive in the long run. \_ As a ex-Sun employee, I think there are many reasons for Sun's problems. Linux is one reason, at least in the workstation / low-end server market. Intel is another reason. Sparc is just not all that important anymore. But the two biggest reasons I think are: (1) extremely poor management; and (2) java. Management at the upper levels was always unwilling to see reality and did not make the cuts that were needed in the early part of this decade. If Sun had cut its staff to 10K-15K in 2002-2003, they would be reasonably well positioned today. Also, Sun has way too many middle managers and upper level technical deadwood (architects, sr. staff eng., &c.). This was a problem that management was also unwilling to correct. These people are the ones that foster the java-religion w/in the company. It doesn't matter how lousy a java project is, it will always be selected for funding over a non-java project. In fact, I saw profitable non-java projects cancelled in favor of incomplete and unreleasable java projects. The only reason for these cancellations was that the profitable projects weren't using java. \_ Religion? You mean cult. -I hate Java \_ http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=JAVA Cash on hand is 2B, market cap is 3B, so your first premise is incorrect. Also, what you should really be looking at is real tangable assets minus liabilities and that is even less, more like $1B. But JAVA really is cheap. \_ I disagree. Take a look at: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=JAVA http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=JAVA&annual Maybe I am not reading this right, but it looks like Sun has lost about $1.3 billion to date this year, and lost $864 million in 2006. This trend is not new and reflects the unwillingness of Sun management to face the reality that fewer and fewer customers need sparc, java, zfs, &c. and that too many people are employed in developing things that no one wants to buy. - ex-Sun that no one wants to buy. -ex-Sun \_ Look at the cash flow chart: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=JAVA&annual They had positive cash flow in both 2006 and 2007, and while 2008 cash flow is negative (through June), cash flow from operations was positive; the negative hit is on sale purchase of stock, which probably means they spent some cash to do a share buyback. (Which was probably a mistake, looking at the overall situation). In general, they're not bleeding money; they're just becoming less and less relevant. -tom \_ They are burning through $250M per quarter, which means they have a year left if things don't turn around quickly. \_ Actually, it looks they just need to stop buying their own stock. \_ Ponytail can do no wrong. Really does anyone take seriously a man in a ponytail? \_ My Little Pony |
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| sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/14/financial/f051352S72.DTL -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/14/financial/f051352S72.DTL Comments Georgia (default) Verdana Times New Roman Arial Font | Size: (11-14) 08:47 PST San Francisco (AP) -- Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as sales of its high-end computer servers have collapsed. Sun's shares have fallen so steeply they've crossed an ominous threshold, driving the company's market value below its cash on hand. That means investors believe the company itself is essentially worthless. After eight years of devastating financial problems and multiple attempts at restructuring, Sun's latest woes have ramped up speculation that one of the most storied names in computing could be snapped up dirt-cheap by a bigger rival. "The magnitude of the work force reduction is certainly overdue," said Brent Bracelin, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. Bracelin said the move puts Sun in a better position to return to profitability, but added that the company is facing hard questions about a possible sale or spinning off parts of the business. The cuts should save an estimated $700 million to $800 million annually. Sun expects charges of $500 million to $600 million spread out over the next 12 months to pay severance and other restructuring costs. Sun also said its software chief, Rich Green, has resigned, as the company splits its software division into three new business groups. One will handle Sun's Java programming language and open-source database offerings. Another will be responsible for Sun's Solaris operating system, which is used to run servers. The third will focus on developing programs for "cloud computing" services delivered over the Internet. "These are hard but necessary changes," Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's chief executive, said in an interview. He said the company has been deeply wounded by the credit crunch, because customers can't get loans to buy expensive servers. A quarter of the Sun's business comes from the ailing financial services sector. Schwartz said the restructuring of the software division reflects the company's increased focus on open-source software, whose underlying code is available for free. Sun's strategy, which some analysts believe isn't paying off as promised, is to sell support services for that software. Schwartz said he's pleased with the company's process in picking up new customers through its software offerings. The company's problem is "isolated to a single line item": sales of its high-end servers, which fell 27 percent in the latest quarter to $576 million. That's a staggering shortfall for a division that contributes a quarter of Sun's overall revenue. "Across the board we feel great about our direction," Schwartz said. Breaking up the business units also serves another purpose: it packages them nicely for possible spinoffs or sale, analysts said. Sun's share price gives the company a market value of roughly $3 billion. The gap indicates extreme pessimism about the company's prospects. At the height of the dot-com boom, Sun's stock price, adjusting for splits since then, topped $250 per share. The company was riding strong sales to Web startups and boasted that its servers "put the dot in dot-com," a catch phrase that became a punch line after the meltdown when Sun's sales shriveled. The company has done several rounds of big layoffs in the last three years. Sun has cut 2,700 jobs since August of last year in two separate restructurings. The company had previously cut about 4,000 jobs after Schwartz took over as CEO from co-founder Scott McNealy in 2006. SLO County workers asked to take unpaid time off In an attempt to combat budget woes, San Luis Obispo County is letting its employees take up to 15 days a year off without pay. |
| preview.tinyurl.com/6nngpm -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/14/financial/f051352S72.DTL&tsp=1 Comments Georgia (default) Verdana Times New Roman Arial Font | Size: (11-14) 08:47 PST San Francisco (AP) -- Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as sales of its high-end computer servers have collapsed. Sun's shares have fallen so steeply they've crossed an ominous threshold, driving the company's market value below its cash on hand. That means investors believe the company itself is essentially worthless. After eight years of devastating financial problems and multiple attempts at restructuring, Sun's latest woes have ramped up speculation that one of the most storied names in computing could be snapped up dirt-cheap by a bigger rival. "The magnitude of the work force reduction is certainly overdue," said Brent Bracelin, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. Bracelin said the move puts Sun in a better position to return to profitability, but added that the company is facing hard questions about a possible sale or spinning off parts of the business. The cuts should save an estimated $700 million to $800 million annually. Sun expects charges of $500 million to $600 million spread out over the next 12 months to pay severance and other restructuring costs. Sun also said its software chief, Rich Green, has resigned, as the company splits its software division into three new business groups. One will handle Sun's Java programming language and open-source database offerings. Another will be responsible for Sun's Solaris operating system, which is used to run servers. The third will focus on developing programs for "cloud computing" services delivered over the Internet. "These are hard but necessary changes," Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's chief executive, said in an interview. He said the company has been deeply wounded by the credit crunch, because customers can't get loans to buy expensive servers. A quarter of the Sun's business comes from the ailing financial services sector. Schwartz said the restructuring of the software division reflects the company's increased focus on open-source software, whose underlying code is available for free. Sun's strategy, which some analysts believe isn't paying off as promised, is to sell support services for that software. Schwartz said he's pleased with the company's process in picking up new customers through its software offerings. The company's problem is "isolated to a single line item": sales of its high-end servers, which fell 27 percent in the latest quarter to $576 million. That's a staggering shortfall for a division that contributes a quarter of Sun's overall revenue. "Across the board we feel great about our direction," Schwartz said. Breaking up the business units also serves another purpose: it packages them nicely for possible spinoffs or sale, analysts said. Sun's share price gives the company a market value of roughly $3 billion. The gap indicates extreme pessimism about the company's prospects. At the height of the dot-com boom, Sun's stock price, adjusting for splits since then, topped $250 per share. The company was riding strong sales to Web startups and boasted that its servers "put the dot in dot-com," a catch phrase that became a punch line after the meltdown when Sun's sales shriveled. The company has done several rounds of big layoffs in the last three years. Sun has cut 2,700 jobs since August of last year in two separate restructurings. The company had previously cut about 4,000 jobs after Schwartz took over as CEO from co-founder Scott McNealy in 2006. SLO County workers asked to take unpaid time off In an attempt to combat budget woes, San Luis Obispo County is letting its employees take up to 15 days a year off without pay. |
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| finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=JAVA Sector Analysis Sign Up for a Free Trial to EDGAR Online Premium! Get the critical business and financial information you need for more than 15,000 US public companies. All information provided "as is" for informational purposes only, not intended for trading purposes or advice. nor any of independent providers is liable for any informational errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. site, you agree not to redistribute the information found therein. |
| finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=JAVA&annual Sector Analysis Sign Up for a Free Trial to EDGAR Online Premium! Get the critical business and financial information you need for more than 15,000 US public companies. All information provided "as is" for informational purposes only, not intended for trading purposes or advice. nor any of independent providers is liable for any informational errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. site, you agree not to redistribute the information found therein. |
| finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=JAVA&annual Sector Analysis Sign Up for a Free Trial to EDGAR Online Premium! Get the critical business and financial information you need for more than 15,000 US public companies. All information provided "as is" for informational purposes only, not intended for trading purposes or advice. nor any of independent providers is liable for any informational errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. site, you agree not to redistribute the information found therein. |