Sun Undergoing Another Round of Layoffs

Sun Microsystems is undergoing another round of layoffs, this time eliminating up to 1.000 positions, sources said.

According to reports, Sun let more than 200 workers go in Colorado as part of the 1,000, and some estimates indicate the company plans to let as many as 2,500 employees go altogether. According to sources, Sun officials announced the need to cut so deeply during its third quarter earnings call in May. For its third quarter, Sun showed a net loss of $34 million, as compared to a net income of $67 million for the third quarter of 2007. However, some of the third-quarter loss can be attributed to Sun's $1 billion acquisition of MySQL.

Sun, which has been the home of some of the brightest minds in the technology industry, has struggled to right its financial ship since its glory days of the dot-com bubble.

Although Sun has yet to make a formal announcement about its recent cuts, one Sun spokesperson called July 10 "a really rough day" because of the layoffs.

Valleywag.com reported that as many as 30 to 65 percent of Sun's marketing department may have been or are about to be cut.

In addition, a number of Sun's more prolific bloggers weighed in July 10 to say it was their last day at Sun. In particular, this one is telling. But others share a bit of their stories here, here, here, here, and here.

Despite bouts of troubled times, Sun has been a giant in this industry and the technological contributions the company has made are here to stay. Despite the layoffs, Sun is pushing ahead with new moves in terms of dynamic language support, tooling for Java development and a ton more.

Meanwhile, some even speculate that Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz could be on the outs.

At the same time, others postulate on a possible takeover of Sun by Fujitsu.

In a post for The Register, Ashlee Vance, said:

“A combined Fujitsu and Sun looks appealing on paper. You'd end up with a company that could really compete quite handily against the massive shops at IBM and HP on a global scale. Fujitsu could pick up some of the best-designed server and storage products going, while also broadening its software portfolio dramatically. Fujitsu would also gain a much stronger presence in the US, while the combined company would be even stronger in Europe (Fujitsu Siemens) and Asia.”