WebProNews

Tag: Layoffs

  • Tumblr Gets Rid Of Storyboard, Team

    Tumblr Gets Rid Of Storyboard, Team

    Tumblr announced that it is shutting down its Storyboard project. According to reports, the company has laid off the tour-person team behind it.

    Storyboard launched last May. Here’s an overview:

    Here’s what Tumblr had to say about its demise on its Staff blog:

    A year ago, Tumblr did something unprecedented — we created an editorial team of experienced journalists and editors assigned to cover Tumblr as a living, breathing community. The team’s mandate was to tell the stories of Tumblr creators in a truly thoughtful way — focusing on the people, their work, and their stories. The result of this ambitious experiment was Storyboard.

    After hundreds of stories and videos, features by publishers ranging from Time to MTV to WNYC — not to mention a nomination for a James Beard Award and entries into this year’s NY Press Club Awards — we couldn’t be happier with our team’s effort. And as Tumblr continues to evolve, we’ll always be experimenting with new ways to shine light on our creators.

    What we’ve accomplished with Storyboard has run its course for now, and our editorial team will be closing up shop and moving on. I want to personally thank them for their great work. And please join us in wishing them well.

    Tumblr itself topped 100 million blogs last month. A recent survey indicated that it tops Facebook in usage among teens.

  • Disney Layoffs to Expand to Studios, Consumer Products

    Disney Layoffs to Expand to Studios, Consumer Products

    Earlier this week, The Walt Disney Company announced that it has closed down the LucasArts games studio and laid off a large number of employees. While layoffs and studio closings in the games industry have not been rare over the past year, the closure of LucasArts came as a shock to many gamers who remember classic games such as Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, and a plethora of Star Wars Games. Today it has become clear that Disney is not limiting its layoffs to its newly-acquired LucasFilm properties.

    According to a Reuters report, Disney will be expanding its layoffs to its studio and consumer products divisions. According to Reuters’ unnamed “two people with knowledge of the matter,” the layoffs will begin within two weeks and will primarily affect marketing and home video units, though the “animation wing” will also be affected.

    It is unclear whether Pixar Animation Studios will be affected by the layoffs. Walt Disney Studios just announced this week that Pixar is creating a sequel to Finding Nemo due out in 2015, titled Finding Dory.

    Reuters’ sources stated that Disney began conducting an internal review last year to identify jobs that have become superfluous due to technological improvements or recent acquisitions.

  • Google Lays Off 1,200 More Employees At Motorola

    Google Lays Off 1,200 More Employees At Motorola

    Google has the unenviable position turning around Motorola Mobility and making it profitable again. That means the company has to make some tough decisions that will affect its employees around the world.

    The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has begun laying off 1,200 employees at its Motorola Mobility hardware division. The cuts are a result of Motorola’s inability to return to profitability as the smartphone maker attempts to compete against the likes of Samsung and Apple.

    The email announcing the layoffs said that the company “is optimistic about the new products in our pipeline,” but says that high costs and operating in non-competitive markets has led to a situation where the newly christened subsidiary of Google just isn’t making money. The layoffs will affect employees in the U.S., China and India.

    The new round of layoffs is apparently a continuation of the layoffs announced last summer that affected over 4,000 employees at Motorola shortly after Google bought the company for $12.5 billion. Since then, the company has struggled to create a smartphone that could be certified as a hit.

    Despite its struggles, Google is still trying to get the most out of its purchase. The company is reportedly working closely with Motorola on something called the “X Phone.” The rumored device is said to be “a real breakthrough” and will go on sale in July. It’s unknown if Google will announce the phone at May’s Google I/O, but it very well could be if the device is chosen to house the next version of Android.

  • Epic Shuts Down Impossible Studios After Just Six Months

    Epic Shuts Down Impossible Studios After Just Six Months

    Epic Games today announced that it is shutting down Impossible Studios. No reason was give other than “it wasn’t working out for Epic.”

    Impossible was formed only six months ago, on August 9, 2012. The employees at the company were largely from Big Huge Games, a developer that itself was shut down in the wake of the 38 Studios failure. Impossible’s studio director, Sean Dunn, was the former studio general manager at Big Huge and was once a creative director with THQ. As recently as January 29 Dunn had tweeted about how “awesome it is to be part of the Epic Games family.”

    Impossible had been working on Infinity Blade: Dungeons, a prequel to the popular Infinity Blade games for iOS. The project has now been put on hold.

    At the time it was founded, Impossible had 36 employees at its Hunt Valley, Maryland office. Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic, has stated that Impossible employees with be given three moths of severance pay. In addition, Epic is releasing its rights to the Impossible Studios name and logo so that the developers can make a go of things on their own.

    Below is Sweeney’s statement, in full:

    We’re closing Impossible Studios.

    When former members of Big Huge Games approached Epic last year, we saw the opportunity to help a great group of people while putting them to work on a project that needed a team. It was a bold initiative and the Impossible folks made a gallant effort, but ultimately it wasn’t working out for Epic.

    In addition to providing Impossible Studios employees with 3 months of severance pay, we’ll be giving the team the opportunity to form a new company with the Impossible Studios name and the awesome Impossibear logo.

    This means that Infinity Blade: Dungeons is now on hold as we figure out the future of the project.

    -Tim Sweeney, Founder, Epic Games

  • Blockbuster Closing 300 More Stores in the U.S.

    As media consumption shifts to streaming and downloaded products, retailers of physical entertainment media are being forced to change rapidly or die ignoble deaths.

    At the same time that Blockbuster U.K. has entered administration (bankruptcy) and announced 160 of its stores across the U.K. will be closing, Blockbuster in the U.S. is having similar difficulties. Dish Network, the parent company for Blockbuster, announced this week that 300 Blockbuster video rental stores across the U.S. will close up shop in the coming weeks. The company told the Denver Post that around 3,000 employees will lose their jobs.

    These new closings are on top of the 500 stores that Dish shut down last year. The company stated that only around 500 Blockbuster stores remain. This is down from the 4,000 U.S. stores the company had at the beginning of 2010, the same year it entered bankruptcy. The specific stores that will be closing have not been unveiled, but consumers who still live around a Blockbuster (and who still want DVDs or Blu-Rays) might want to watch for closeout sales.

    A Dish company spokesperson told the Post that the company is currently evaluating Blockbuster stores on a case-by-case basis, and that underperforming stores will be closed. The company is also evaluating whether or not to sell smartphones and wireless service at Blockbuster stores, a sign of the times if there ever was one.

  • StumbleUpon Cuts 30% Of Staff, All Company Areas Affected

    StumbleUpon has laid off 30% of its staff, as reported earlier by TechCrunch, who interviewed CFO and interim CEO Mark Bartels. The company has been reduced to 75 employees (down from 110).

    StumbleUpon’s Mike Mayzel tells WebProNews, “StumbleUpon is restructuring to enable the company to become more streamlined, focused and to better execute against its goals in 2013. As a result of these changes, the company will be profitable and will operate more quickly and efficiently and experiment more aggressively. We continue to grow and remain focused on providing the best discovery experience on the Web.”

    According to the TechCrunch report, the company’s revenue has grown by 300% over the last three years. In recent months it has pushed out some major new products, like a big overhaul of its website, and new apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8, all complete with new discoverability features that really do make StumbleUpon itself more of a destination in addition to sending users all around the web.

    As far as that referral traffic goes, a report in November indicated that it was sending less traffic to sites, which StumbleUpon assured us was actually wrong, and that traffic was increasing.

    Mayzel says the restructuring affects all areas of the company, including engineering, product and marketing.

  • Developer Eurocom Shuts Down in Wake of 007 Legends Failure

    Following the release of the poorly-reviewed and all-around dismal failure 007 Legends, developer Eurocom has laid off its 42 remaining employees and ceased trading on its stock. An Administrator from Smith Cooper has taken control of the company.

    Eurocom issued a statement to Eurogamer, revealing that the company was not able to secure new development contracts in time to pay its employees. From the statement:

    Since 2008, there has been a steep decline in the sales of Console and PC games, which has led to a severe contraction in the number of new games being commissioned from global publishers of entertainment software. The company has also faced intense competition from developers in countries with lower costs or those subsidised with generous games tax credits…

    …The Directors of Eurocom would like to offer their heartfelt thanks to all their staff that have been made redundant at this difficult time, and show their appreciation of all of their hard work in consistently delivering exceptional games.

    “Exceptional” may be a bit hyperbolic. In its 24 years, Eurocom was best known for porting games to various consoles, as well as developing numerous movie and brand tie-in games. Most recently the company developed the GoldenEye 007 remakes for consoles, Disney Universe, and 007 Legends.

    Eurocom is correct that video game development is becoming a much more competitive industry. No matter how many tax credits studios in Sweden or Poland get, however, the game quality will always play a central role in the success of developers.

  • PayPal Cutting Jobs, Following Up On Previously Announced Reorganization Plans

    PayPal Cutting Jobs, Following Up On Previously Announced Reorganization Plans

    There have been reports about PayPal laying off part of its staff, and now the company has come out and confirmed 325 layoffs in a blog post.

    The post points to another post from June, when President David Marcus discussed consolidating PayPal’s product groups into a central global product organization led by Hill Ferguson, who was previously in charge of PayPal’s mobile division. In that post, Marcus told readers to expect to see more results of the changes over the next few months.

    Some of those changes are being felt today.

    “Unfortunately, making the right decisions on behalf of our customers meant we had to make some very tough decisions inside our company,” Macrus wrote in today’s post. “This morning we informed approximately 325 full time employees, primarily in our product and technology organizations, that their roles are being eliminated. We also are ending contracts with approximately 120 contractors globally.”

    “While PayPal is strong and performing well, making decisions that impact our employees was hard,” Marcus adds. “So this is a difficult day at PayPal. These are good people, good friends and colleagues, who have played a role in creating PayPal’s strong global leadership position today. We appreciate all the contributions that they have made. And they are being treated with fairness and dignity, consistent with our culture and values.”

    PayPal parent eBay reported its Q3 earnings earlier this month, including a 15% year-over-year increase in revenue and strong performance from PayPal, which on its own saw a 23% year-over-year revenue increase (and a 14% year-over-year increase in active registered accounts, putting the number at 117.4 million).

  • Zynga Laid Off Over 100 Employees During The Apple Event

    Apple took over the Internet news cycle today with the announcement of the iPad Mini. The news would obviously drown out anything else, including mass layoffs at one of the largest social game developers in the world. Nobody would be that stupid to try a stunt like that though, right?

    That seems to be exactly what happened during the iPad Mini event as Zynga is rumored to have laid off over 100 employees from its Austin studio. There are similar layoffs being reported from its Chicago and Boston offices as well.

    The news first broke less than an hour ago when Justin Maxwell, a friend of a Zynga employee in Austin, reported the lay offs via Twitter.

    He later clarified that the teams let go were those behind The Ville and Bingo. He also said that the news comes from a friend and that it’s not an official announcement from Zynga. Gamasutra reached out to other sources, however, and were able to confirm the layoffs at the Austin studio.

    Speaking to another source, Joystiq was able to confirm that the The Ville and Bingo teams were indeed cut. The Austin studio still has about 70 employees left working on Zynga Slots. The company’s simulated gambling division is still doing relatively well so it makes sense to keep them around. It’s unknown if Zynga will drop support for the games that were affected by the cuts.

    It’s not exactly surprising to see the layoffs at this point considering how awful Zynga has performed this year. The company’s value has dropped considerably since its IPO and many top executives and creators have already left. The executives that are left are being investigated for insider trading after they sold most of their stock prior to the crash.

    While the layoffs at Austin have been pretty much confirmed, we still don’t know the fate of Boston or Chicago. There’s a good chance they were also affected.

    Many game industry folks (and Zynga haters) took to Twitter to discuss the rather convenient timing in which Zynga announced the lay offs:

  • PopCap Shuts Down Its Dublin Studio

    PopCap Shuts Down Its Dublin Studio

    One month ago, it was announced that PopCap games would be reorganizing its studios and laying off employees. At the time, it was stated that around 50 employees, mostly from PopCap headquarters in Seattle, would see layoffs. PopCap co-founder John Vechey posted a well-worded blog entry about how much losing your job and firing people sucks. The statement was heartfelt and just about the most kind way (if there is one) to announce layoffs.

    Today, though, word has come down through Twitter that PopCap’s studio in Dublin, Ireland has been closed. Word first came through (now former) Associate Producer at PopCap Mobile JP Vaughan, who posted the word to his twitter account.

    He followed this up with the news that the people at the studio have had 30 days to prepare for the shutdown. Meanwhile, Stu Taylor, dirctor of international public relations at PopCap, tweeted a more lighthearted version of the announcement:

    Joystiq is quoting an unnamed source with saying the closure took place this morning after an 11 am meeting and that 96 people lost their jobs over the past month.

    (via All Games Beta)

  • Bank of America to Cut 16,000 Jobs by Year’s End

    Bank of America to Cut 16,000 Jobs by Year’s End

    Bank of America will be speeding up its cost-cutting measures and will lay off 16,000 employees by the end of the year.

    The Wall Street Journal has obtained a “document given to top management” of the bank and is reporting that the layoffs are part of cost-cutting measures that will make the company “a leaner and more focused enterprise.

    The document states that the plan is to “become a major deal maker around the world” by taking less risk, making more money from existing customers, and using an investment operation from Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America acquired during the financial crisis in 2008. This all translates into fewer local branches and a shrunken mortgage operation.

    The Wall Street Journal points out that these cuts will drop Bank of America from its position as the U.S. bank with the most employees. After the layoffs, the bank will have an estimated 260,000 employees – less than J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, or Wells Fargo, the report states.

    Bank of America has faced the same financial difficulties that other banks have since the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis began. The company has implemented numerous cost-cutting and revenue-generating changes, including considering charging a fee for basic checking accounts. This has made the bank unpopular with banking customers, and it was the runner-up in The Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” competition this year.

  • Hewlett-Packard to Cut 2,000 More Jobs Than Previously Stated

    Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced today that it would cut 2,000 more jobs than it originally reported back in May. This brings the total planned layoffs up to 29,000 by the end of fiscal year 2014.

    According to a Bloomberg report, a regulatory filing today revealed the increased number of layoffs. Back in May, HP announced that it had begun a restructuring program, of which the tens of thousands of layoffs (8% of its entire workforce) are a large part. The company estimated that the program will save $3-$3.5 billion annually by the end of 2014.

    This news comes on the same day that HP announced a new lineup of enterprise security solutions. A new focus on cloud security and information analytics is part of HP’s restructuring program.

    Even so, its enterprise services were devalued in August, when the company wrote off $8 billion from the value of Electronic Data Systems (EDS), an IT services company HP bought in 2008 for $13.9 billion. Since that acquisition, HP has faced the growing competition and rapid industry change that many aging technology manufacturers have seen. HP’s stock has reflected this, falling over 30% this year, according to Bloomberg.

    HP has not announced the reason for the increased number of layoffs. At the IFA trade show in Berlin two weeks ago, HP announced a new series of Windows 8 ultrabooks and a Hybrid tablet/PC called the HP ENVY x2

  • St. Jude Medical Announces Layoffs & Reorganization

    St. Jude Medical, a company that makes medical devices such as pacemakers and catheters, this week announced that the company will be reorganizing its product divisions into two units. The company also stated that it will “centralize” support functions such as human resources, IT, legal, and marketing. The move will result in 300 employees being laid off.

    “The reorganization we have announced today is part of a comprehensive plan to accelerate our growth,” said Daniel Starks, chairman, president, and CEO of St. Jude Medical. “We are focused on reducing costs, leveraging economies of scale, maintaining the highest level of quality, and funding our entire portfolio of new growth drivers.”

    Though the reorganization includes layoffs, the company has also named three new executive officers. Donald Zurbay will serve as vice president of finance and CFO, Rachel Ellingson will serve as vice president of corporate relations, and Kathleen Chester will serve as nice president of global regulatory.

    St. Jude Medical estimated that the reorganization will result in a reduction of its pre-tax expenses by around $50-$60 million, starting next year.

    The two new product division units will be the Implantable Electronic Systems Division (IESD) and the Cardiovascular and Ablation Technologies Division (CATD). The IESD will combine the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division and the Neuromodulation Division. The CATD will be made up of the Atrial Fibrillation Division and the Cardiovascular Division.

  • Lexmark Ditches Inkjets, Lays Off 1,700 Worldwide To Cut Costs

    I remember my family’s first Inkjet printer. It was a Lexmark and I was proud to own a piece of hardware designed in Kentucky. The era of inkjet printers from Lexmark ends today, however, as the company is selling off that part of the business.

    Lexmark announced today that they will no longer be involved with “the development and manufacturing” of inkjet hardware. Getting rid of their inkjet business will save Lexmark $95 million a year. As part of the restructuring, the company also announced 1,700 layoffs worldwide with 550 affecting their headquarters in Lexington, KY.

    “Today’s announcement represents difficult decisions, which are necessary to drive improved profitability and significant savings,” said Paul Rooke, Lexmark chairman and chief executive officer. “Our investments are focused on higher value imaging and software solutions, and we believe the synergies between imaging and the emerging software elements of our business will continue to drive growth across the organization. As we move forward, we remain confident in our strategy, competitiveness and ability to create value for shareholders.”

    Lexmark anticipates to offload their entire inkjet business by the end of 2013. The company is also hoping to close its Philippines-based manufacturing facility by the end of 2015. They’re also working to sell off all of their inkjet related technology and patents.

    Speaking to Business Lexington, Rooke said that Lexmark was evolving “from a hardware-centric company to a solutions company.” By that, he means that the company will now focus primarily on software, specifically in the field of “higher value imagining and software solutions.”

    Lexmark expects the restructuring to cost them $160 million over the next three years. The company also plans to return more than 50 percent of free cash flow to its investors. To accomplish this, they will be purchasing $100 million worth of stock in the third and fourth quarters of this year.

    The news of Lexmark ditching the inkjet business caused their share price to skyrocket by three points today. The company is currently trading at $22 per share.

  • OnLive Debt Revealed to be $30-40 Million

    OnLive Debt Revealed to be $30-40 Million

    The OnLive reorganization and layoffs last week were bizarre. The company issued no official statements at the time of the incident, leaving it to Twitter to break the story and allowing confusion and seemingly conflicting reports to spread. What actually happened is, perhaps even more strange than the rumors first suggested.

    What happened, in short, is that OnLive filed for ABC bankruptcy, which gave the company some protection from its debtors and investors. It then laid off its entire staff and transferred its assets to a new company (also named OnLive) through an intermediary. This left investors in the old OnLive, including HTC, holding the bag.

    The reason for the restructuring remained a mystery until yesterday, as the company was widely believed to have been solvent. The San Jose Mercury News managed to get an interview with the intermediaries to the transaction, and it turns out that OnLive was in severe debt. Joel Weinberg, CEO of Insolvency Services Group (ISG) told the Mercury News that the company owed $30-40$ million to creditors.

    Weinberg stated that OnLive was in “dire straits” and only days away from going under when the insolvency process commenced last Friday. ISG transferred OnLive’s assets to the new OnLive, which was funded by the Lauder Partners, a venture capitalist company. Weinberg told the Mercury News that he only expects to be able to pay the old OnLIve’s creditors 5 or 10 cents per dollar of OnLive debt owed.

  • Sony Mobile Announces 1,000 Layoffs

    The late summer layoffs just keep coming. Sure, it was expected that RIM would be laying off many employees, but who saw the gutting of Motorola Mobility coming? Game companies have had it even worse than device manufacturers, though. PopCap apologetically announced layoffs earlier this week, and OnLive’s recent debacle is something to behold.

    Sony Mobile, Sony’s mobile phone division, today announced that it will lay off 1000 employees, including consultants. This rounds to about 15% of Sony Mobile’s global workforce. The layoffs will happen over the course of the next two fiscal years, so it won’t happen all at once.

    The layoffs are part of a plan to alter the global operational structure of Sony Mobile, including its sties in Tokyo, Lund, and Beijing. Starting in October, the Sony Mobile headquarters in Lund, Sweden will be moved to Tokyo, Japan. The company stated that it is streamlining its supply chain management and trying to integrate better with Sony as a whole.

    “Sony has identified the mobile business as one of its core businesses and the Xperia smartphone portfolio continues to gain momentum with customers and consumers worldwide,” said Kunimasa Suzuki, president and CEO of Sony Mobile. “We are accelerating the integration and convergence with the wider Sony group to continue enhancing our offerings, and a more focused and efficient operational structure will help to reduce Sony Mobile’s costs, enhance time to market efficiency and bring the business back to a place of strength.”

  • Sony Announces it Will Close Studio Liverpool

    It seems to be that time of year in the gaming industry. It’s the calm before the storm of the holiday shopping season, and titles simply aren’t being released. Studio heads are no doubt looking through their accounts with gathering worry. Just in the past week, PopCap games has announced it is laying off 50 employees, and OnLive restructured its entire company, laying off half of its staff and giving the finger to its former investors.

    Today, Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it will be closing Studio Liverpool, and that its resources will be put into other studios. A statement from Sony said this about the closing:

    As part of SCE Worldwide Studios, we do regular reviews to ensure that the resources we have can create and produce high quality, innovative and commercially viable projects in an increasingly competitive market place. As part of this process, we have reviewed and assessed all current and planned projects for the short and medium term and have decided to make some changes to our European Studios.

    It has been decided that Liverpool Studio should be closed. Liverpool Studio has been an important part of SCE Worldwide Studios since the outset of PlayStation, and have contributed greatly to PlayStation over the years. Everyone connected with Liverpool Studio, past and present, can be very proud of their achievements.

    Studio Liverpool posted the picture you see above to the WipEout 2048 Facebook page, as well as the following farewell message:

    As some of you may have heard Sony have chosen to close Studio Liverpool as of today. This page will no longer be maintained by the WipEout Team.

    We have loved making every game, every minute and every one of you. Keep the faith, keep loving WipEout.

    Thank you for everything, Pilots. It’s been an amazing journey and we’ll miss you.
    x

    Studio Liverpool was most known for the Formula One and Wipeout series of games. It is unclear at this time whether these franchises will survive the closing.

  • PopCap Games Announces Reorganization and Layoffs

    PopCap today announced that it has begun a reorganization of its studios that includes a “reduction in force” in North America. More specifically, around 50 employees, most from the PopCap headquarters in Seattle, will be losing their jobs.

    John Vechey, Popcap co-founder and vice president of corporate strategy and development, made the announcement with a post on the PopCap blog. Vechey also stated that PopCap is talking with its Dublin branch to work out whether sales in Europe can be increased enough to keep the branch open. From the blog post:

    Today’s news is something you expect periodically from a company in a fast-changing industry, but it sucks if you’re one of the people losing his or her job. These people are our friends and we don’t like doing this…

    A little context on why we’re making cuts in some areas while we’re investing and expanding in others: In the past year, we’ve seen a dramatic change in the way people play and pay for games. Free-to-play, social and mobile games have exploded in popularity. That happened fast. Surprisingly so. The change in consumer tastes requires us to reorganize our business and invest in new types of games on new platforms. It’s a completely different world from when we started.

    Just over one year ago PopCap was acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) for $605 million. This latest news from PopCap may signal that social and mobile gaming may have reached its saturation point. Zynga, once considered a major PopCap competitor, has faced disaster this year after its stock crashed at the end of July. Zynga COO John Schappert has been ousted from his position and the company is now begging employees to stay on.

    Popcap just yesterday announced that a Plants vs. Zombies sequel will be released sometime in the first half of 2013. Vechey reiterated that that game is still on track for a spring 2013 release.

  • OnLive Re-formed as Half Its Staff is Re-hired

    Just before the weekend began last Friday, rumors about OnLive began to leak out over Twitter. The convoluted story gleaned from OnLive employees was that the company was entering bankruptcy and that its entire staff had been laid off. The only thing OnLive would say about the turmoil inside the company was that the OnLive service would be continuing.

    It turns out that the real explanation for Friday’s events is more complicated than anyone imagined.

    Today OnLive finally issued a statement on the matter, saying the company has transferred its assets to a newly formed company that is also named OnLive. The company’s game and desktop services will continue to operate as normal, and customers will retain all of their purchases. Venture capital firm Lauder Partners has invested heavily in the new OnLive. The company seems completely undeterred by its over-the-weekend restructuring. In fact, the company stated it has several product and service announcements coming in the next few weeks.

    What happened is that OnLive’s board of directors filed for Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC), something close to bankruptcy, but where debt collectors are left in the dust. OnLive transferred its assets to a third-party holding company, which then transferred those assets to the new OnLive. This process left the original OnLive’s investors, including, no doubt, many OnLive employees, with worthless stock.

    The conflicting rumors flying around on Friday afternoon turned out to all be true, in a way. Though the original OnLive is shutting down and did lay off its entire staff, the new OnLive re-hired around half of those employees at their current salaries. The other half were offered “consulting” work in exchange for stock options with the new OnLive. OnLive stated that it plans to hire more staff when it secures additional funding. According to an official statement, “most” OnLive executives are receiving reduced compensation to allow more employees to be hired, and CEO Steve Perlman did not receive any compensation for the transaction.

  • OnLive Reported to Have Laid Off its Entire Staff [Rumor]

    [UPDATE]
    Gamasutra is confirming that all OnLive employees have been laid off.

    [ORIGINAL]
    Today OnLive, the company that offers cloud-based, streaming gaming, was reported to have fired its entire staff. The company has denied that the OnLive service is shutting down, but confusion continues to swirl about whether employees were let go. Word of the layoffs first came from industry insider Brian Fargo, founder of inXile Entertainment:

    Fargo has since provided the text of the email he received:

    I wanted to send a note that by the end of the day today, OnLive as an entity will no longer exist. Unfortunately, my job and everyone else’s was included. A new company will be formed and the management of the company will be in contact with you about the current initiatives in place, including the titles that will remain on the service.

    It has been an absolute pleasure working with you and I’m sure our path with cross again.

    Minutes later, Fargo fired off the following tweets:

    Mashable, citing an unnamed source, reported that an all-hands meeting at 10 am Pacific time resulted in the layoff of the company’s entire staff. Its source also stated that some of the employees may be rehired once the new company is formed. An update to Mashable’s report quotes OnLive Director of Corporate Communications Brian Jaquet as saying “no comment,” but emphasizing that the OnLive service will not be shutting down.

    The OnLive service is a solid platform and the company appeared to be doing well. It even released a number of new features this year, including streaming Windows 7 to iPads. In fact, rumors of layoffs don’t seem to have deterred OnLive’s public relations company from advertising the service’s latest offerings. The official OnLive Twitter account just sent out the following tweet:

    What exactly is happening at OnLive is still unknown. Though the company has issued carefully-worded statements that the OnLive service will not be shutting down, it has not commented on possible layoffs or made an official statement. Kevin Dent, CEO of Tiswaz Entertainment chimed in on Twitter and summed up the confusion felt throughout the industry:

    The Perlman Dent refers to is Steve Perlman, founder and CEO of OnLive.

    Updates to this story will follow as more information becomes available.

  • Google Announces 4,000 Motorola Mobility Layoffs

    Late summer’s layoffs in the mobile sector are set to continue.

    Google has announced that it intends to layoff 4,000 Motorola Mobility employees – about 20% of its entire workforce. According to a form 8-K filed earlier this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), two-thirds of the layoffs will come from outside the U.S. There are also plans to consolidate the Motorola infrastructure by closing one-third of its facilities – about 30 locations. From the SEC filing:

    These changes are designed to return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability, after it lost money in fourteen of the last sixteen quarters. That said, investors should expect to see significant revenue variability for Motorola for several quarters. While lower expenses are likely to lag the immediate negative impact to revenue, Google sees these actions as a key step for Motorola to achieve sustainable profitability.

    The $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Motorola’s mobile hardware division, was finalized earlier this year after Chinese regulators approved the deal. Though the acquisition was in large part a purchase of Motorola’s expansive mobile patent portfolio, layoffs may signal that Google is looking to turn the company into a profitable competitor in the mobile hardware sector. Both companies have a long way to go, though. An NPD Group analysis revealed last week that Apple and Samsung are continuing to consolidate their power over the smartphone market at the expense of every other brand, including Motorola.

    In an interview with the New York Times, Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside said his company will be leaving unprofitable markets. He also stated that it will no longer be making feature phones and other low-end devices, instead focusing on the smartphone market. According to Woodside, Motorola will drastically cut the number of phones it releases in an effort to make it’s products “cool again.”