Symantec Cuts Jobs As Part Of Restructuring

[OhioChick]

Source: Reuters

The company, which has about 17,000 employees, laid off some 570 workers near the end of 2007.

April 10, 2008 05:12 PM

BOSTON - Symantec (NSDQ: SYMC), the world's largest maker of security software, has recently laid off an undisclosed number of workers around the globe, a company spokeswoman said Thursday.

"As part of our ongoing focus on managing operational expenses, Symantec has recently implemented some restructuring measures, including a reduction in force," said company spokeswoman Yunsun Wee. "We're not releasing information on the size or the scope."

Symantec, which has about 17,000 employees, had laid off some 570 workers in its fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec 31, according to its most-recent quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company has yet to provide financial data for its fiscal fourth quarter. (Reporting by Jim Finkle, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)






Read more: http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/app_security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207100992

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Snip~ "We're not releasing information on the size or the scope."
Doesn't sound good....

[yourout]

1. The product has become like the company.......bloated and overpriced.

Norton Internet Security is the biggest resource hog in the computer world. I am always telling people to ditch it and go with AVG or Avast and they are always happy they did.

[leftyclimber]

2. I worked for those guys in the Gordon Eubanks years

and it was a good place to work. They treated their employees extremely well.

Then they acquired too many companies, Thompson took over (great, hire the guy responsible for OS/2), and tried to refocus as a corporate-targeted shop. They were expanding way too fast for way too long. I can't say I'm surprised to see it happen, but I'm sad. A lot of good folks will be losing their jobs.

[DaveJ]

5. Thanks for the info. Corps should retrain instead of firing.

I bet they fired a lot people who were getting too old, and moreover those who they considered "un-trainable".

Unfortunately, companies lose control of themselves, after they sell their souls to the devil by submitting to shareholders' heartless desires to get money for nothing.

These companies no longer have souls. They end up being run by greedy executives and shareholders who contribute absolutely nothing to the product, and siphon profits like the disgusting leaches they are.

[leftyclimber]

8. At SYMC

A lot of the "old" people are in their 40s and 50s. I doubt they were untrainable; they probably just didn't speak Hindi.

I'm betting they're canning tech support, QA, and development. They're easiest hired overseas.

One of my most powerful memories of this company is when one of the tech support folks had a heart attack at a young age: a VP cancelled everything in order to make sure this woman's same-sex partner was immediately covered by disability (very generous) and that everything was taken care of WRT health insurance and so on. Not HR, a VP. For those of us who were close friends with this person, they gave us time off with pay to stay in the hospital with her rather than charging us vacation (sadly, she didn't make it).

When I worked there SYMC was one of those places where the people you worked with became very dear to you, although that was quite a few years ago and I have no idea what it's like now. I'd hope it's the same, but it's hard to say as I've been out of the tech industry for some time now. Regardless, there are some remarkable folks still working there and I wish them the best.

My frustration: what can they retrain FOR? Barista? Hell, we had "retrained" loggers working in our office after the timber industry tanked. What's left?

[DaveJ]

9. Putting their egs in one basket...

Unfortunately once mindless greed takes over, there is nobody who can make decisions anymore. It becomes a glut fest consisting of people wanting to make profit, but don't know how... they only know how to move money around to their own benefit and nobody else's.

I'm not sure how they could gut tech support anymore than they have already. My guess is that they are firing sales related people. They could have moved these non-tech savy folk into project management positions, move their better tech support into development positions, and create new and amazing products.

But we have no leaders anymore who do things like that. They are all out for themselves. They want to raise stock prices, sell out, and move onto the next opportunity.

It's a non-sustainable business model, but these people are not even business savy, they are scam artists who contribute nothing positive to the world. Sorry for the negative attitude. This is just my opinion based on my limited knowledge. Maybe Symantec is an exception to the rule.

[FarCenter]

11. How did that Veritas acquisition work out?

I never understood the advantage of that merger.

[BearSquirrel2]

3. Their #1 problem ...

Their #1 problem for quite some time has been that their software slows your computer down more than the viruses they're trying to defend against. There was never any sense that the user is actually USING the computer and that maybe they should throttle back the scanner while they could detect keyboard or mouse activity.

[rAVES]

4. Wouldnt use their software if it was free.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Good

Crappy software, lousy product. I sure hope McAfee isn't far behind...

[DaveJ]

7. Their employees don't deserve to get punished

The top tier staff and shareholders made the decision to make crappy products, and they will walk away rich.

[customerserviceguy]

10. How do you suggest

we figure out how to punish the muckety-mucks and shareholders, and reward the employees for agreeing to take jobs where they make salaries from writing and selling bloatware? At some point, each of us needs to look at what our employers do, and how they do it, and figure out how to either change it, or get out of there.

"I was just following orders," didn't wash in Nuremburg, it doesn't apply in multi-national corporations, either. People who code software know which companies make the good stuff, and which ones are bilking the public. They have a moral responsibility to not enable the fat cats to get richer off of the scheme.

[bean fidhleir]

12. One way to do that

is to make the necessities of life available as a right of citizenship. That way, people wouldn't have to take whatever work they could get. They'd have choices, possibly including the right to stay at home and write the next HP.