LAYOFFS: NO LOVE AT TERADATA

San Diego, California-based Teradata Corporation, a developer of databases, cloud-based data analytics software, and consulting services, has experienced some changes in senior management and the layoff of 83 product and technology employees in San Diego, California, El Segundo, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

The short-term (11 months) CEO, Oliver Ratzesberger, has been replaced by Victor Lund who will serve as the interim CEO. The decision appears to be driven by poor share performance and the CEO’s alleged inability to reduce the headcount quickly. However, if you believe the employees, the company’s problems are driven by a lack of management focus on core products and services.

According to a company spokesperson, “These decisions were not taken lightly. Regarding San Diego, Teradata continues to invest in the local San Diego community, bringing approximately 300 jobs to the region so far in 2019. This far outweighs any impact to local employees as part of the changes being made globally.”

Rumors of additional layoffs to be announced in January 2020, going private, and the company’s possible acquisition by someone like Oracle or Salesforce abound.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

NO LOVE AT SYMANTEC — NORTONLIFELOCK (UPDATED)

JANUARY 4, 2020 — NORTONLIFELOCK LAYOFFS CONTINUE

According to published reports on NASDAQ, the company “is reportedly laying off 55 employees each in San Francisco and Mountain View, as inferred from documents filed with California regulators.

The company reportedly notified the laid-off employees about their impending settlement on Nov 19, 2019. The retrenchment will go into effect from January 17, 2020 In fact, another 19 layoffs are expected to take place in Mountain View around mid-February 2020.

NortonLifeLock also filed two separate California WARN notices for the layoff of 16 people in Culver City, Southern CA. Further, notices were filed in Oregon and Texas, where the company is in the process of cutting 50 and 42 jobs, [Granite Parkway site in Plano, Texas] respectively.”

Rumors continue to abound — “McAfee may put in a bid to buy the company's consumer business, challenging existing private equity bidders Permira and Advent International.”

JANUARY 3, 2020 — SYMANTEC SYSTEMS, NOW KNOWN AS NORTONLIFELOCK HAS ELIMINATED ANOTHER 34 POSITIONS AT ITS PLANO, TEXAS OFFICE.

The company sold its Symantec name and its enterprise business to San Jose, California-based communications chip maker Broadcom for $10.7 billion in August 2019 and will concentrate its NortonLifeLock business on the consumer-facing sector.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 206 MORE LAYOFFS IN CALIFORNIA

Continuing with its planned restructuring, the company has announced the layoffs of 206 employees;152 employees at its Mountain View, California headquarters, 18 in San Francisco, California, and 36 in Culver City, California. Ironically, the Culver City office is located between two major cemeteries.

UPDATE: MORE LAYOFFS IN SPRINGFIELD, OREGON

Symantec has announced that some of the remaining employees in Springfield, Oregon will be laid off in October, 2019 after the sale of the company’s enterprise security division to chip-maker Broadcom in August, 2019 for $10.7 billion.

Original post …

Mountain View, California-based Symantec Corporation, the world’s leading cybersecurity company, has announced it will restructure and reduce its workforce by as much as 8 percent.  Symantec had approximately 11,800 employees in December 2017 and an 8 percent reduction would appear to be up to 944 employees.  In a recent conference call, Symantec’s CFO Nicholas Noviello said that the company plans to record $50 in restructuring costs associated with the reduction-in-force.

One can only wonder if the changes are being driven by an activist investor, in this case, New York-based hedge fund Starboard Value, LP whose current position is 5.8% of Symantec. The hedge fund is demanding operational improvements to unlock shareholder value and seeking to replace five board members. They claim that the new board members can help Symantec resolve accounting discrepancies brought to light by an employee.

It appears that a Symantec employee has lodged credible allegations regarding Symantec’s historical financial records. The company has notified the Securities and Exchange Commission engaged an independent law firm to investigate. Already the vultures are flocking as one law firm is advertising for Symantec shareholders and has said it was “preparing a class action lawsuit to recover losses suffered by Symantec investors.” 

It appears that Symantec’s core business of supplying anti-virus software to companies and individuals may take a significant hit when users switch to cloud-based solutions where the anti-virus and anti-malware is the responsibility of the service provider and the user’s only interaction with the cloud is with a relatively safe and secure browser.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life, or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?