(Rumor) Oracle: Major layoffs are to come in January 2009

According to rumors from different sources: “There were several layoffs reported between November – December, 2008 in Oracle’s North America consulting unit. The reduction in force included 140 IT consultants specializing in Siebel, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, and Hyperion products.”

Rumor: “A bunch of people were laid off from Oracle’s business units including utility and retail. Major layoffs are to come in Jan 2009”.

Rumor: “at least 2 people were laid off from PeopleSoft/Oracle unit with no warning.”

Rumor: “20% of the Education staff was let go”.

Update: According to Dow Jones and CNNMoney: “Oracle Corp.’s (NASDAQ: ORCL) fiscal second-quarter net income fell slightly, with the stronger dollar dragging on revenue and profitability.
Revenue for the quarter was lower than Wall Street expected, reflecting both the currency impact and weaker information-technology expenditure, but cost control and a strong flow of maintenance support revenue helped Oracle hit its quarterly earnings per share guidance.”

Update 2 (1-09-2009): According to rumors:

• SAP layoffs: “A source reports that SAP is making some deep cuts in SAP’s Strategic Growth Enterprise (SGE) unit (focused on the SMB space). A 300 sales-related positions were affected in North America.”
• Infor layoffs: A source reports that “Infor just laid off a staggering 85% of their senior managers and executives across UK and Europe.”

Update 3 (1-11-2009):

• India’s Oracle office in Bangalore lays off 40 people, according to The Time of India.
• Oracle India has an extensive network of more than 400 channel and alliance partners in India, which includes Infosys, Satyam, Sonata, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro.

Update 4 (1-12-2009):

• Reports said that after the acquisition of i-Flex, Oracle was planning to lay off almost all employees of that company, though the decision was scrapped after intervention of Oracle’s management, as the layoff of all i-Flex employees could project a failure of the acquisition, according to rumor

Update 5 (1-13-2009):

• An anonymous report suggests that termination packages were sent out to folks on 1/9/2009 in the US.
• PCWorld mentioned LayoffBlog.com in their Oracle layoff-related article.
• ComputerWorld also mentioned LayoffBlog.com.

Update 6 (1-13-2009):

• Oracle cut around 500 positions in its North American sales and consulting businesses last Friday (January 9, 2009), according to WSJ and other sources.
• Investors had anticipated a larger scale of the job cuts thanks to the rumors last week that the company was aiming to eliminate thousands of its employees, according to Yahoo Finance
• Oracle  employed 86,657 globally at the end of November.

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