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Sprint Confirms Jobs To Be Cut
November 17, 2015 by admin
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Sprint Chairman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has confirmed that job cuts at Sprint will be “in the thousands” as part of a restructuring plan.
His comments came as SoftBank, which owns more than 70% of Sprint, reported its quarterly earnings.
“Sprint is now in the position to increase the pace of user acquisition while cutting costs,” Son said, according to Bloomberg and other news sources. “We will also cut staff. The cuts will be in the thousands.”
Son’s comments are not out of line with things Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has been telling Sprint workers for months.
On Tuesday, Sprint’s stock price sagged downward after an earnings report included a statement saying that the carrier plans to cut $2 billion or more in operating expenses for its 2016 fiscal year, which begins in April.
Son also said the $2 billion is a “minimum target” and should be the amount slashed annually, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company now has more than $25 billion in annual costs.
Sprint has been investing in attracting new customers — an effort that has been costly but effective. On Tuesday, Sprint reported it gained 237,000 postpaid phone customers in its second fiscal quarter, which ended Sept. 30. It was the first time the company had showed gains on that measure in two years. It also reported its lowest customer cancellation rate in company history.
In November 2014, Sprint had said it would cut 2,000 jobs as part of $1.5 billion in cost reductions. That announcement came after Sprint had cut 5,000 jobs from January through September 2014. The company had 31,000 workers at the start of its current fiscal year on April 1.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/sprint-confirms-thousands-of-jobs-to-be-cut.html
Sony To Acquire Toshiba’s Sensor Business
November 4, 2015 by admin
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Toshiba Corp is offload its image sensor business to Sony Corp for around 20 billion yen ($164.68 million) as part of a restructuring plan laid out earlier this year, sources with knowledge of the deal said on Saturday.
Toshiba, whose businesses range from laptops to nuclear power, is undergoing a restructuring after revelations this year that it overstated earnings by $1.3 billion going back to fiscal 2008/09.
Image sensors, which are used in digital cameras and smartphones, are part of Toshiba’s system LSI semiconductor business. Toshiba plans to sell its image sensor manufacturing plant in Oita, southern Japan, and pull out of the sensor business altogether, said the sources, who declined to be identified.
The sale is likely to be finalized soon, the sources said.
Toshiba is considering several options for its system LSI semiconductor business and its discrete semiconductor business and that debate is ongoing, a Toshiba official said when contacted.
An official from Sony declined to comment.
Masashi Muromachi, who became Toshiba’s CEO following the accounting scandal, has promised to restructure lower-margin businesses.
The deal for the image sensor business would be the beginning of the restructuring, Nikkei reported earlier on Saturday.
Sony is already a dominant player in the image sensor market, with its products used in phones made by China’s Xiaomi and India’s Micromax Informatix Ltd.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/consumer-category/sony-to-acquire-toshibas-sensor-business.html
Is Canon Betting Its Future On IoT?
Canon has announced that it is joining the raft of technology companies attempting to take on the Internet of Things (IoT) through what it is calling the ‘Imaging of Things’.
Speaking at the firm’s EXPO 2015 event in Paris on Tuesday, Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai talked up the firm’s global vision for the future as the IoT becomes more pervasive.
“Canon is showing how the world of imaging is expanding rapidly in the age of the IoT,” said Mitarai.
“In the future nearly everything will be connected through smart devices. These rely on built-in cameras or sensors and the data they generate. As a result, Canon predicts that the IoT will largely depend on the ‘Imaging of Things’.”
To take on this future, Mitarai plans to overhaul Canon’s business structure to build a network of smaller Canon companies and thus create an “ecosystem of innovation”.
The CEO said that these companies have been designed to “harness innovation and creative talents from across the regions”, and will include more investment in what Canon does but on a more local level in different regions across the world, as opposed to all of the innovation being created in Tokyo, as it is at the moment.
This will allow “regional independence and international collaboration [to be] put into practice”, Mitarai said.
In this new “network of companies”, Mitarai explained that each regional headquarters will manage local R&D and manufacturing, as well as service and support customised to its market.
In Europe, the smaller Canon companies will focus on printing and network video surveillance, and the firm has already brought in specialists in these business areas such as Océ, Axis and Milestone Systems.
Mitarai said that, along with its global reputation for cameras, this will make Canon the largest printing and network video surveillance company in the world.
On a B2B level, the move is also about helping other firms build new competitive advantages and improve services for their own customers.
“We are changing our own operation model and go to market structure to build more expertise in these areas and connect with our customers,” said Jeppe Frandsen, head of the Production Printing Group at Canon Europe.
“Our customers are changing so we are now looking at a way customers are changing to what their customers want – new ways to do business together.”
Canon’s EXPO 2015 event was also an opportunity for the company to show off many of the latest projects from its R&D centre in Tokyo for the first time in Europe.
These tie in with the firm’s new focus as it launches smaller companies in more regional areas, and include a range of innovative practices such as responding to society’s monitoring needs, 3D printing as part of a partnership with 3D Systems in Europe, and graphic arts via investment in digital print technologies.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/technology-2/is-canon-betting-its-future-on-iot.html
Is RadioShack Going Bankrupt?
September 23, 2014 by admin
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Troubled electronics retailer RadioShack Corp says filing for bankruptcy protection is an option if its cash situation worsens, after reporting its tenth straight quarterly loss.
The company said it was also exploring other options, including a sale or an investment, and liquidation as the last resort.
RadioShack, whose sales have been in free-fall since 2010 as it struggles to compete with internet retailers, said in a regulatory filing it was working with its lenders and landlords to restructure its debt and cut costs.
“It would surprise me if we got to Nov. 1 without a bankruptcy,” Wedbush Securities Inc analyst Michael Pachter told Reuters.
RadioShack shares, which are in danger of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, were up 2 percent at 95 cents in volatile early trading.
The company said same-store sales declined 20 percent in the latest quarter, while total sales plunged to their lowest in more than 20 years.
The company is being advised by a restructuring attorney at law firm Jones Day as it tries to strike a deal with creditors to close stores, two people close to the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
RadioShack tried to close 1,100 stores this year, but reduced that number to 200 a year when lenders did not agree to the plans.
RadioShack’s landlords, however, may be open to mass store closures if they believe it will allow them to find new tenants more quickly than in a bankruptcy, a source close to the matter told Reuters.
David Tawil, president of hedge fund Maglan Capital that focuses on companies approaching bankruptcy, said he saw “major execution risks” to RadioShack’s recapitalization and turnaround efforts.
“I don’t think that the chances are great that RadioShack survives,” Tawil said, adding that the company’s credit default swaps were trading higher, pointing to market expectations of a near-term debt default.
The company ended the second quarter with $30.5 million in cash and $658.0 million in debt, which matures between 2018 and 2019.
Cisco Launches I-O-T Security Contest
Cisco has leant its support to the Internet of Things (IoT) with a security competition.
The “Internet of Things Grand Security Challenge” will be offering prizes of up to $300,000 for innovations designed to close security loopholes surrounding internet-connected objects.
Because the IoT is a loose concept rather than a standard or protocol, the criteria for the solutions are quite far reaching, with a Cisco blog post citing that it will evaluate entries based on:
Feasibility, scalability, performance, and ease-of-use
Applicability to address multiple IoT verticals (manufacturing, mass transportation, healthcare, oil and gas, smart grid, etc.)
Technical maturity/viability of proposed approach
Proposers’ expertise and ability to feasibly create a successful outcome
We now live in a world where even the most benign objects are hackable and the numbers of devices involved will only increase, so it therefore will become imperative that the interconnectivity involved does not overstep boundaries of safety or privacy.
Sierra Wireless recently launched Legato, a Linux distro specifically engineered for the IoT, which actually plays up its capacity for gathering Big Data. Meanwhile the IT industry continues to be excited about the IoT with Intel claiming it will be the next major disrupter in tech.
Winners of Cisco’s security challenge will be announced this Autumn at the Internet of Things World Forum, with six prizes of between $50,000-$75,000 up for grabs, as well as the overall winner’s $300,000 bounty.
Sony Exits PC Business
Sony will unload its struggling PC business to a Japanese investment firm, the company said Thursday, raising the possibility that the “Vaio” brand could all but disappear from markets outside Japan.
Tokyo-based investment fund Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will operate the Vaio PC brand under a newly established firm and initially sell PCs in Japan only.
In another reform aimed at bolstering its restructuring efforts, Sony also said it would turn its beleaguered TV business into a subsidiary.
The moves come as Sony said it now expects a net loss of $1.1 billion for the year to the end of March, a reversal of its October profit forecast.
Vaio, which Sony introduced in 1996, looks set to vanish from most markets, at least for short term, as the new company will initially concentrate on selling consumer and corporate PCs in Japan. Whether or not Sony will continue to produce products under the Vaio brand remains to be seen, Sony said.
Although Sony is selling its PC business, it will continue to produce tablet computers, part of its renewed focus on mobile devices including smartphones.
Sony did not put a price on the sale. Sony will take a 5% stake in the new firm, it said.
Sony will stop making and selling PCs after its 2014 Spring lineup launch, but about 250 to 300 Sony staff, including some from a subsidiary that produces TV sets, cameras and computers at factories in Japan, will be hired by the new company, which is to be based at the hub of Sony’s current PC business in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture.
Meanwhile, Sony said it will turn its TV business, which has faced a decade of losses, into a wholly owned subsidiary by July 2014.
Xerox Moving Into IT Services
Printer and copier maker Xerox Corp forecast current-quarter earnings below estimates as it quickens efforts to transform itself into a technology services provider.
Xerox, whose shares were little changed at midday, also offers services such as managing toll systems and healthcare programs to counter sluggish growth in its printers and copiers business, which accounts for about 40 percent of its revenue.
Services is now the larger part of the company’s business and lower margins in IT and business process outsourcing is dragging overall margins.
The company said it expects second-quarter revenue from its document technology business, which includes printers and copiers, to decline in the mid-single digits. Revenue fell 9 percent to $2.14 billion in the business in the first quarter.
Based in Norwalk, Connecticut, Xerox moved into business services with its purchase of Affiliated Computer Services Inc (ACS) for $5.5 billion in 2009 – the company’s biggest deal in its 106-year history.
Xerox said it plans to quicken the pace of a restructuring plan kicked off in the last quarter of 2012 and included a 2-cent restructuring charge in its second-quarter forecast.
Xerox said it expects flattish revenue for the full year, compared with previous expectations of up to a 2 percent growth, it said on a conference call with analysts.
The company said it was on track to reach its target of adjusted EPS of $1.09 to $1.15 for the full year and to generate operating cash flow of $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion.
“Europe remains weak. US remains stable, but weak. We have not seen a pickup in the US,” Xerox CEO Ursula Burns said on a conference call with analysts.
“We did see a slowdown, a bit of a slowdown, in some developing market economies. But our business model is fairly resilient in the developing markets,” she said.
Will Cisco Boot Linksys?
Cisco reportedly has hired Barclays to find a buyer for its Linksys business.
Cisco bought Linksys back in 2003 to get into the consumer networking business and the firm has put out some good products, most notably the WRT54G wireless router that was a favourite with technology savvy punters. Now Cisco is looking to offload Linksys as it continues to pull back from the consumer networking market.
Cisco has been cutting jobs and products such as the Flip video camera, as it wants to get back to the high margin enterprise networking business. Back in 2003, Cisco paid $500m for Linksys and got access to an established business that focused on producing consumer network equipment.
A decade later, it is being reported that Cisco will be lucky to get its $500m back. Cisco has been pulling out of its failed attempt to get into the consumer market and is now focusing on flogging both network infrastructure hardware and servers, though it is widely expected to be hit hard as software defined networks become more popular.
Unlike Cisco’s core enterprise business, Linksys products typically have low margins, and with its parent firm’s slowing sales growth, it is not surprising Cisco wants to offload it. Bloomberg’s sources said Cisco might find interest in buying Linksys from television makers, though they wouldn’t provide any more details.
Did Huawei Steal From Cisco?
Huawei has replied to US rival Cisco after the networking firm made allegations about the Chinese company relating to a lawsuit between the two firms.
The case dates back to 2003 and relates to the alleged theft of source code by Huawei from Cisco for use in its networking products. The case was settled confidentially out of court.
Cisco complained about what it saw as a willful distortion of the facts of the case after Huawei’s chief representative in the US, Charles Ding, claimed the outcome was that Cisco stood down over its allegations.
In response, Cisco released excerpts from a report by an independent analyst that was used to form the basis of a settlement, which Cisco said proved Huawei had used its source code in its products.
However, in a statement sent to The INQUIRER, Huawei said it was “disappointed with the continued rhetoric from Cisco” and claimed there was no basis to its argument.
“With respect to the lawsuit which took place about 10 years ago, the fact is the court dismissed the case, upon a joint stipulation of the parties, after the neutral expert’s review. This shows Cisco’s present allegations have no merit,” it said.
Furthermore, the firm also said it didn’t believe Cisco had the right to report elements of the review.
“We don’t think Ding violated the agreement between Cisco and Huawei, which had a negotiated confidentiality provision in it,” it said. “Cisco’s general counsel’s selective and misleading cropping of a confidential report from the Neutral Expert may have violated that provision.”
Huawei added that it would consider releasing more information on the case, though, in an effort to paint a more complete picture of the case.
“However, since Cisco has put selected snippets into the public domain, the truth may require that more than carefully selected quotes be put in the public record. Huawei is exploring the best way to accomplish that goal,” it said.
Cisco Gives Employees The Boot
Network equipment maker Cisco Systems said on Monday that it plans to eliminate about 1,300 jobs as part of ongoing efforts to restructure the company.
“We are performing a focused set of limited restructurings that will collectively impact approximately 2 percent of our global employee population,” the company said in an emailed statement.
These actions are part of a continuous process to simplify the company and assess the economic environment in certain parts of the world, it said.
Cisco had 65,223 employees at the end of its fiscal third quarter, according to its website.
Cisco last year started a plan to cut expenses by $1 billion in an effort to make the company leaner and more efficient.