Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier this morning, the US Department of Justice gave the T-Mobile / MetroPCS merger  its official green light in the form of a 30-day waiting period, which expires is there are no objections made within those 30 days. But it looks as though T-Mobile is a little too eager to get the merger ball rolling as it seems the company may already be performing a significant round of layoffs within its Bellevue headquarters.

The reports are coming from people inside of the company and may affect over 100 people within T-Mobile’s marketing division as well as other groups within the company. These layoffs are expected to happen sometime today as conference rooms have been designated for “integration” meetings.

As of now, no official word has come from T-Mobile in regards to these reports, but considering T-Mobile has been steadily losing customers, which the claim its recent drop in customers is due to the iPhone 5, we wouldn’t doubt something big is about to go down at T-Mobile if its merger with MetroPCS happens.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung To Introduce Low-End Galaxy Pocket Neo Smartphone, iPhone 5S Production Rumored To Be Ramping Up At Foxconn,

Intense semiconductor competition has already forced numerous Japanese companies to work together, and now Fujitsu has announced that it’ll merge its LSI chip design and R&D divisions with Panasonic. The two companies are looking to the state-run Development Bank of Japan to fund the new venture, which comes in the wake of expected Fujitsu losses of over $1 billion this year — forcing the company to cut 5,000 jobs and transfer 4,500 to other divisions by March 31st. Fujitsu said it’s also looking to transfer a state-of-the-art LSI fabrication line in central Japan to a new foundry venture with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world’s largest chip maker. That carries on a trend in declining Japanese chip dominance, exemplified by Elpida’s bankruptcy and the recent government bailout of Renesas, which itself is a merger of NEC, Hitachi and Mitsubishi’s semiconductor operations.

[Image credits: Wikimedia commons]

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Via: WSJ

Source: Fujitsu

The Japanese consumer electronics industry continues to feel the squeeze in the economy, with mass layoffs of workers representing one of the more painful effects. In the latest development, Panasonic Corp. says it will reduce its workforce by 10,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year, which completes in March 2013. The company had already warned that it will post losses of $10 billion for the full year, because of write-offs in its mobile, solar panel and lithium battery businesses.

The mobile business in particular has been seeing some tough times, with Panasonic Mobile reportedly preparing to pull out of the European market altogether, leaving it covering only Asia going forward.

While Panasonic has yet to make an official statement about the 10,000 layoffs, CFO Hideaki Kawai made the plans public in an interview with Reuters. They are part of a wider strategy to reach operating profits of $2.52 billion (¥200 billion) in the next three years. At the moment a fifth of its 100 business units are losing money, and there are plans for some of these to also be sold off.

Panasonic, along with other Japanese consumer electronics giants, have been between a rock and a hard place for a while now: on the one hand, there is the global economic downturn that has seen reduced consumer spending; on the other, the rise of Chinese and Korean, and other Asian companies making similar goods for significantly cheaper prices — or simply better quality, more desirable goods — has impacted these companies’ margins. Panasonic is a grandaddy of Japanese consumer electronics — it was founded in 1918 and remains Japan’s biggest employer — but in the last five years, it has posted four annual net losses.

The 10,000 cuts come on the heels of 36,000 layoffs at Panasonic last year. Several other Japanese consumer electronics giants have also faced mass layoffs. These include 11,000 workers reportedly getting the chop at Sharp (made public in September), and Sony announcing redundancies of a further 2,800 workers in October, part of its plan to cut 10,000 in total.

AllThingsD and CNET are reporting that 30 percent of AMD’s workforce could be laid off, though one of several unnamed sources notes the cuts could be as low as 10 percent. If these reports hold true, this would be the second round of layoffs for AMD within a year’s time. The reductions will reportedly affect the firm’s engineering and sales employees, and may be serious enough to cause a paring back of product lines. The silicon giant could potentially reveal its plans as early as next week, which would coincide with the announcement of its third quarter financial results. With the company expecting a ten percent revenue drop in Q3, it looks like the latest figures will continue the trend of less than ideal results.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops, AMD

AMD could slash up to 30 percent of its workforce according to reports originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japanese electronics giant Sharp is reportedly planning a major restructuring to bring the company back to profitability by 2014, as reported by Kyodo News. Said restructuring will see Sharp cut nearly 11,000 (10,966) jobs from its 57,170-person workforce by March 2014 — just under 20 percent of all employees — and sell off various assets, resulting in ¥213.1 billion ($2.7 billion) of much needed capital from lenders. Named assets to be sold include international manufacturing plants, and shares in other Japanese electronics company, Toshiba. The company also plans on shuttering its international manufacturing plants, as well as once again cutting employee wages.

So, what’s gonna save Sharp from more turmoil? A rethinking of its LCD TV business, apparently, as well as a “strengthening” of the company’s smartphone LCD offerings. Sharp’s also moving away from solar batteries, selling off its US-based solar firm Recurrent Energy LLC. Company prez Takashi Okuda will head up the massive restructuring, leading an “emergency management committee” starting in October. All of this adds up to Sharp expecting a return to profitability by next April. You’ll forgive us if we’re a bit wary of that prediction, but our best wishes are with those impacted by the chaos.

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile

Report: Sharp increases layoffs number, aiming for profitability by March 2014 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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