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Up to 6,000 to go as Sun restructures
In open source they trust

By Margaret Kane

Published: Friday 14 November 2008

Sun Microsystems announced on Friday a restructuring that involves layoffs of 15 per cent to 18 per cent of its global workforce.

The company's reorganisation of its software operations includes the departure of Rich Green, executive vice president of software.

Sun's restructuring will result in a charge of between $500m and $600m over the next 12 months, with about $375m to $450m coming in the current 2009 fiscal year.

The company said it should start seeing cost savings in the third quarter of the current fiscal year.

Sun will realign its software organisation into new business groups: Application Platform Software, Systems Platforms, and Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms, with a focus on "boosting open source momentum and growing new sectors of the market who view technology as a competitive weapon".

Chief marketing officer Anil Gadre will run the Application Platform group, which will include the company's Java technology franchise, MySQL open source database product, the GlassFish Application Server, and the Sun Learning Services organisation.

The Systems Platform group will be led by John Fowler and include Solaris Virtualisation and systems management software.

Dave Douglas will lead the Cloud computing group, which will include Network.com, the NetBeans developer platform, and the StarOffice portfolio.

Sun announced a seven per cent drop in fiscal first-quarter revenue last month, coming in the midrange of its previously lowered earnings forecast.