Oracle to Layoff 2000 Jobs 178
Joey Benington writes "Oracle plans to cut 2,000 jobs across the Siebel and Oracle work forces after completing its merger with Siebel last week. 'We will retain 90 percent of Siebel's support, development engineers, sales and sales consultants,' said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. 'Most of the Siebel cuts will be in the back office, and nontechnical staff. The majority of the cuts will be Oracle people, not Siebel.'"
And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Stock = ownership.
Jobs = cost.
When you cut costs, you please ownership.
Do not pretend that being allowed to buy and sell stock in public markets means you care for employees. It does the opposite. It makes you yell at CEOs to constantly improve production rates while reducing costs. In the end, this non-resident-owner system results in a totally amoral business climate. People do not matter, and tenths of a
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, there's a collective hiring binge in the Bay Area right now. Most of the layed off folks will probably end up at Google with more pay real soon.
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:2)
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:2)
so if the company is running so poorly that it can't afford to pay 20% of its workers, why not just tell the CEO to take the same pay as one of them, and pay the rest?
because your analogy is a strawman, just like mine, that's why
How to survive - long-term (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the owners who are receiving the benfits of this mentality who are going to win with globalization - not the workers. They're fucked. Labor, including smart people (90th percentile - .1*1 billion = 100 million very smart people in India alone!), is a commodity, now.
Another avenue is creativity. Not just the artsy folks, but being creative with new products and services and try to create your own asset to own.
Just what I've been hearing from folks who are making it in this new economy.
Re:How to survive - long-term (Score:2)
Do not ever mistake the sedentary state of the masses for an inability to take what is theirs by dint of number. When you become as dehumanized as your corporate interest makes them, it's not as sanitary.
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:2, Informative)
Oracle and Siebel will have common administrative services - of which the new company does not need two. I'm sure they won't have two CEOs, so shouldn't that propagate the whole way down the company.
Laying those people off - while bad for the individuals - makes the company stronger and more secure. And what's the external measure of strength/security - stock price.
2000 jobs out of 55000 is, say, about 1 in 30. I work with a group of about 30 people - and o
Re:And no doubt Oracle's stock will rise . . . (Score:1)
Only 2,000 jobs lost (Score:1)
Oh thats OK then. 2,000 people is still a lot of people...
Re:Only 2,000 jobs lost (Score:2)
Let's see, the article says they'll be left with 55000, that means they're cutting almost 4% of the combined workforce. woo.
Re:Only 2,000 jobs lost (Score:2)
Re:Only 2,000 jobs lost (Score:3, Funny)
Its People! (Score:5, Insightful)
It should read, "Oracle to layoff 2000 people" Not jobs, people. People are losing their jobs. Its a sad thing.
Re:Its People! (Score:1)
Re:Its People! (Score:2)
Never understood this attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
A person losing their job is a scary thing for that person and their family. It's not necessarily sad. What is your philosophy when it comes to this? Once someone is given a job, does that mean they have it for life regardless of performance of the person or the company that person has chosen to align themself with? I can understand this statement coming from a brief moment of idealism or naiveness, but people lose their jobs. That's a necessary and proper action to maintain the economy as a whole. The realistic viewpoint is that most of the people laid off (especially the good ones) will go on to even better jobs.
That is not sad. Scary for them, but not sad.
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:1, Insightful)
The person's performance? Of course not! If you're a slacker (or just plain stupid), you need to be shown the door, pronto.
The company's performance? Well, obviously in the real world they don't, which is why it is sad (as well as, as you said, scary). They may have been sharp as a tack and working their butts off, but because of stupidit
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
The realistic viewpoint is that most of the people laid off (especially the good ones) will go on to even better jobs.
As each cycle of better software clangs itself onto clueless managers' brains, the managers start to realize that employing real people is a profit negative.
This is NOT similar to the buggy whip analogy, THINKING people are being replaced now, not just assembly-line workers.
If you recall, after WW2 many people went into office work. Your experience may be different from mine, but mo
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Want to solve all of the world's probl
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Here's the thing that people don't get... Most big corporations are multinationals. They may give the appearance of being US-based, because that's what they were historically. Not anymore. As
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Do you think that all Asian economies will always remain sources of cheap labor? It's still somewhat alarmist hand-waving to predict that China/India will suddenly become economic superpowers on a par with the US/Europe, but that does seem to be the trend. They are cranking out huge numbers of PhDs over there, and China especi
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
If the American people were really concerned about the resources going into technical education and industrial research, but the congress wasn't, the situation would not last long.
You imply that money, not votes is what drives members of congress. That is
only the case because most people don't pay much attention to politics
and are largely influenced by campaign ads.
So members of congress go after the money to buy the ads.
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Corporations are instruments of Executives and Boards of Directors.
More accurately put:
Corporations are being treated as disposible instruments of short-term gain by nearsighted and greedy Executives and Boards of Directors - enabled by ignorant or impotent minority shareholders, and workers, who will be fleeced in the process.
Q: If you take the pawns off the board, (represented here, by the massive divestment in tech-stocks from mid-1999, continuing through to today)
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Its the lack of control that makes it sad.
You become reliant on the steady pay, the feeling of worth, the "something to do/place to go" because you belong.
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:1)
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Do you have any real scientific data that backs this point up? One would think most people get the same level or worse jobs because they are older and less employable.
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
Tell that to their families, when hopefully temporary but unexpected cash flow problems may result in losing the family home, or having to change schools, or in the extreme case not having food to put on the table. It can take time to find a new job, even if you're good at what you do and you're doing your best to find it.
Re:Never understood this attitude (Score:2)
My philosophy on this is:
The American Economy is 2/3 driven by consumer spending. When good jobs are lost, it hurts the entire American Economy.
And when a worker loses his or her job, it may be because that worker was not a good performer, and did not deserve the job. But more often than not, a
Re:Its People! (Score:2, Funny)
"It should read, "Oracle to layoff 2000 people" Not jobs, people. People are losing their jobs. Its a sad thing."
Now that you've broken the ice on the pedantry thing, can I just say that it should be "Oracle to lay off 2,000 people"?
Oracle == Soylent Green? (Score:2)
Its [sic] People!
I though Soylent Green was people?? Dang it.
It should read, "Oracle to layoff 2000 people" Not jobs, people. People are losing their jobs. Its a sad thing.
Yes, it is a sad thing (no sarcasm). However, I would like to point the grammar finger back at you and mention that "layoff" is a noun; the headline should read Oracle to Lay Off 2000 People
Re:Its People! (Score:2)
Re:Its People! (Score:2)
Not just "to layoff", as in to happen in the future, either. Just yesterday, Oracle layed off a slew of people from their Pleasanton office. I don't have any numbers, just word from a friend who was among the "let go".
Re:Its People! (Score:2)
'Lay off' is the verb. I know slashdot is not the place for English lessons, but if someone's correcting people, he or she should be doing it right.
Let me guess (Score:4, Insightful)
Based on this rant, I'm going to guess you just got a job in IT working at the help desk and can't believe how stupid those idiot users are. You know a lot about Windows XP and still think you know everything. You're likely a few years away from realizing just how little you do know and attaining humility.
It's OK. Many IT people go through this phase. Best of luck to you.
Re:Let me guess (Score:2)
Re:Let me guess (Score:2)
Re:Let me guess (Score:2)
Whoa! That was beyond insightful. How do you mod a comment "+5 Zen"?
College Professor (Score:2)
Re:Its People! (Score:2, Interesting)
That's too English. I can do so much better:
"Workforce Re-allocation"
"Re-Engineering"
"Right-Sizing"
and my personal favorite: "Resource Action"
Re:Its People! (Score:2)
I hope they paid their.. (Score:2, Interesting)
FTFA: Delivery of the layoff notices has already begun, and the bulk of the pink slips will be handed out in the next few weeks
I think it's better to get canned before Christmas. That way, you don't rack up a shit load of credit card debt.
Re:I hope they paid their.. (Score:2)
As long as it's before you do your shopping. I (and ten others) were notified on 12/13 that my 6-month consulting engagement that began in August and was allegedly solid at least through the end of January would be ending Christmas eve.
As for "we're laying off Oracle people, not Seibel people"...it makes one wonder whether the motivation was "Let's keep the folks whose attitude hasn't been ruined
Re:I hope they paid their.. (Score:1)
I had a 9 month low-pay contract, so I am eating ramen, preparing homemade chicken, no dining out, no christmas gifts, checking trash bins, no cable TV, no phone, rusty car, using clothesline instead of dryer, and I'm curretly deciding cheapest internet possibility (nobody has wireless I can stea.. I mean use). I would not sleep at all if I don't save enough money to survive six months of unemployment or lo
Re:I hope they paid their.. (Score:2)
Sounds more like a sexual harassment message to me.
Re:I hope they paid their.. (Score:2)
Evidently. Of course, nothing's guaranteed anymore.
Not exactly "freelance" as such; I was W2 to a contractor who was providing staff through another contractor to the client. Right up to the day the axe fell the offical word was that the gig was solid up to the end of six months and beyond, with a good chance of gettig hired as staff. The manager I was doing work
Re:I hope they paid their.. (Score:1)
You forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
I, myself, ask that nobody give me anything for Christams. I don't need anymore stuff. I have too much stuff as it is. But, unfortunately, there seams to be this "law" somewhere that people have to buy "stuff" for others and spend waayyy too much money.
I really wish Christmas was about
How do you layoff jobs? (Score:5, Funny)
Although this could be correct if it were at Apple. Imagine:
"Apple lays off 1 Job(s)"
Freudian slip by.. (Score:1)
Here's how (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Here's how (Score:1)
09:10:58> Update Employees SET UNEMPLOYED_TYPE = 'LAID OFF'
WHERE UPPER(Employer) IN ('SIEBEL', 'ORACLE')
AND UPPER(Skill_Set) Like '%NONTECHNICAL%'
AND UPPER(Department_Type) Like '%BACK OFFICE%'
AND Salary
2000 rows deleted.
09:11:02> commit;
--
Oh crap, I just accidentally laid off people from my company with this post. Rollback! ROLLBACK!!!!
Re:Here's how (Score:1)
Re:Here's how (Score:1)
Re:How do you layoff jobs? (Score:2)
It started yesterday (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It started yesterday (Score:2)
Confirmed. A friend of mine was one of the layed off. His severence included WARN, which means that in an office of 75+ people, when 50+ are laid off, they are given 60 days pay. (Or, that's the brief explanation I got.)
Luckily, another friend there did make it through.
Market forces (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.dqindia.com/dqtop20/2004/compdetails.as p?rank=19 [dqindia.com]
Good old market forces in action, folks. Nothing to see here, move along
Re:Market forces (Score:1)
CFO says 100%, CEO says 90% (Score:2, Interesting)
"We will retain...Siebel's product development and product sales and marketing teams," said Catz.
"We will retain 90 percent of Siebel's support, development engineers, sales and sales consultants," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. Obviously Catz is the one who must be lying because no one would be daft enough(no, not even Ellison) to say 90% if it were really 100%. Mak
Job Cuts seem to be in vogue (Score:1)
Re:Job Cuts seem to be in vogue (Score:2)
Re:Job Cuts seem to be in vogue (Score:2)
Or in the case of the large US Car manufacturers doing this lately, becuase they realized 100% of their (Unionized) payroll was a bunch of Bozo's that weren't pulling their weight.
Often in these situations the company will actually be more productive (i.e. get more work done) after all these people are gone.
Of course in other situations the company is just c
Re:Job Cuts seem to be in vogue (Score:3, Informative)
And beside, it's not like they are getting dumped into a saturated market. Silicon Valley has thousands of openings in other tech companies. Most of these people will get snatched up by Google (1000+ openings), Yahoo (500+ openings), and
Re:Job Cuts seem to be in vogue (Score:2)
Umm, transfer of skills?
It is by far not that easy to jump in most jobs from one tech company to the next. Sure, if you're a DBA or C Programmer or SysAdmin it is no big problem, but if you are specialized on some of the CRM applications (which o
Re:Job Cuts seem to be in vogue (Score:3, Insightful)
When people won't buy even good products, or stop traveling out of justified fear, you have to scale back your staff. The tr
Saving some money for a shopping spree? (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess they should not lay off those people (Score:2)
It's too bad for the people who are losing their jobs, but there are always opportunities for talented, resilient individuals.
This is NOT an Oracle thing -- it's an acquisition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is NOT an Oracle thing -- it's an acquisit (Score:1)
exactly - and more (Score:2)
The whole point of Oracle picking up Siebel was to get the best-of-breed CRM package and integrate it into the Oracle suite. Naturally this causes some redundancies (on the Oracle side) and people are going bye-bye.
The only irony is anybody at Oracle who thought their job was safe when the acquisition began; if you're on the dog product you should be updating your resume as s
One monor problem with your argument: (Score:2)
That doesn't quite jive with this:
``The majority of the cuts will be Oracle people, not Siebel.''
Oracle Sails vs Oracle Sales (Score:2, Funny)
These layoffs were predicted (Score:1)
jesus that's silly (Score:2)
severance packages? (Score:2)
Re:severance packages? (Score:1)
Re:severance packages? (Score:2)
This explains why Oracle is talking about laying off primarily their own staff and not the staff from the acquired company...
VARCHAR2(4000) (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:1)
Layoffs because of open source? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Layoffs because of open source? (Score:1)
Note: my opinions are not necessarily those of my employer.
none (Score:2)
Of course, AFAIK there's no such thing as a proprietary CRM solution but that's just the cynic in me.
Scaring More Away (Score:2)
And yet ... (Score:3, Insightful)
HELLO!??! What kind of idiot works their butt off studing for four years to enter a career that is stressful, demands never-ending study, and calls for ever-increasing sacrifices of personal time in return for a job that offers middling pay and doubtful prospects for long-term employment?
Oh wait
Tech workers? (Score:2)
That do
BS (Score:5, Informative)
They even had the balls to tell us they might call us if they realized it was a mistake and wanted you back. Does that sound like the "ethical" way to do things for a company?
Re:BS (Score:2)
The problem for the company is that if they start asking around people will find out before the fact and that could cause some bigger problems.
Sure it is not "ethical" in that sense, but at least they are open enough to admit it. I was caught in a similar layoff once, I wasn't called back, but they ended up calling back an entire group
Re:BS (Score:2)
Such as? When I was working at Avaya, I survived several rounds of layoffs before finally being let go. And yes, my managers were being very critical of who was being let go at what point. I saw that axe coming... I just started a project that had a lot of more expirienced engineers already onboard, so I wasn't critical. If they had randomly let me stay and some
Future Acquisitions (Score:2)
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/fe
Re:Future Acquisitions (Score:2)
Two things are hitting Oracle here (Score:1)
Secondly, they're getting their hat handed to them by MySQL [mysql.com]. I attended (via webcast) a MySQL introduction, and probably 90 percent of the online chat Q&A was from Oracle Developers and DBAs like me asking about migration from Oracle and tutorials on the same, as well as differences such as the more TSQL-based triggers (instead of the PL/SQL ones that I le
Re:Two things are hitting Oracle here (Score:2)
I can only speak from my experience, and there were a lot of Oracle devs and DBAs on the MySQL presentation, all of whom seemed fairly competent.
So, my guess is open-source and other DBMS choices are eating away at Oracle's former dominance. Sure, there were a few people migrating from Microsoft's DBMS, but most who were on there were Oracle, or so it appeared.
To be frank, the only reason I was good at PL/SQL triggers is that three of my first
Stop whining, start buying (Score:2)
Way before Katrina came along, I bought $10,000 worth of VLO [marketwatch.com], back when this company was $10. My mouth was watering after they became the biggest oil refining company in the United States (they took over Diamond Shamrock not too long ago).
After Katrina hit, I had well over 5x my original investment and dumped the st
In Similar News... (Score:2)
Seriously, just like the Pope looking like the Emperor from ROTJ, Ellison looks like Beelzebub.
Re:Lay off the Billionaire (Score:1)
Re:Lay off the Billionaire (Score:1)
Dude, do you know how I know you're gay?
Yeah, it's a scary time and it might seem sad but I think it's the best decision for the both companies and the economy as a whole. If these good people have valuable skills, they should have no problem finding another position and learn from the experience.