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EDS Earnings Fall; Layoffs Set
EDS officials said in September the companys third quarter was going to be difficult. The outsourcer last week posted a net income of $86 million—a 59 percent drop over the same period last year—on declining revenues of $5.41 billion—a 3 percent drop.
EDS said it will lay off 3 to 4 percent of its work force over the next several quarters. Chairman and CEO Dick Brown said the company will reduce its corporate overhead by $75 million next year and sell off non-core assets to generate $500 million.
While analysts said they were worried about EDS ability to get new contracts and handle large outsourcing projects, Brown sought to assure investors and prospective clients, saying the company is being more selective on projects.
“We are not stepping away from megadeals,” Brown said. “We are, however, more conscious of our cash position as we look at megadeals.”
AMD Chip Center Set for Business
AMD, trying to gain a foothold in the enterprise for its forthcoming Hammer family of processors, is inviting developers and OEMs to test the chips.
The company last week opened the AMD Developer Center at its Sunnyvale, Calif., facilities, where software developers and hardware manufacturers can gain access to everything from AMD engineers and software to testing labs. The center can also be accessed remotely.
AMD said it hopes the 64-bit Hammer chips—the Clawhammer, due in the first quarter, for desktops, and the Opteron, due in the first half, for servers and workstations—will challenge Intels Itanium and Pentium processors among OEMs and enterprises.
Borland Keeps On Shopping
Borland continued its monthlong buying spree, announcing last week that it will acquire Java development tool maker TogetherSoft for about $185 million in a cash-and-stock deal.
Last month, Borland bought BoldSoft and Starbase as it continues to look to round out its software offerings. With its purchase of TogetherSoft, Borland gains the Java development tools suite that TogetherSoft acquired when it bought WebGain in August. TogetherSofts products, including the Together ControlCenter suite, let developers more quickly create software via design-driven tools.