Sun restructuring to see 6,000 jobs cut

17 Nov 2008

A strategic restructuring at Sun Microsystems will see up to 6,000 jobs axed – almost 18pc of the company’s global workforce.

On Friday Sun’s board of directors approved a restructuring plan aimed at reducing costs by US$700m to US$800m each year.

The plan includes a reduction of 5,000 to 6,000 workers, representing between 15pc and 16pc of the company’s global workforce.

Sun said it expects to incur total charges in the range of US$500m to US$600m over the next 12 months in connection with the plan, of which it expects to incur approximately US$375m to US$450m within its current fiscal year 2009.

Sun said it expects to begin realising cost savings in the third quarter of its fiscal year 2009, and expects to realise a substantial portion of the run rate benefit by the first quarter of the next fiscal year.

“Today, we have taken decisive actions to align Sun’s business with global economic realities and accelerate our delivery of key open source platform innovations – from MySQL to Sun’s latest Open Storage offerings,” said Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems.

Sun’s new software alignments include the formation of two new business groups and a new group within Sun’s existing Systems business, consisting Application Platform Software, Systems Platforms and Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com