Sony layoffs will effect SOE division?

Samuraisword

December 9, 2008 4:41 AM PST

Sony to lay off 8,000 full-timers, 8,000 others

Posted by Margaret Kane Font size Print E-mail Share 10 comments Updated at 7:41 a.m. PT to include reductions in temporary and contract workers.

Sony plans to lay off 8,000 workers in its electronics business worldwide as part of a broader plan to trim expenses and tighten its focus in a difficult financial climate, the company said Tuesday.

The Japanese electronics and media giant, which currently has a full-time global workforce of 160,000, joins a long list of tech companies that have cut jobs and scaled back production.

The company will also eliminate a number of contract workers and temporary employees, which would total an additional 8,000 jobs, according to Reuters.

In addition to the job reductions, Sony plans to curtail or delay some of its investment plans. The company will also downsize or withdraw from unprofitable or noncore businesses. The cuts should account for a total annual cost savings of more than 100 billion yen ($1.08 billion) by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.

The company is outsourcing a portion of its planned increase in manufacturing of complementary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, image sensors for use in mobile phones. Additionally, it is postponing plans to invest in production expansion at its liquid crystal display, or LCD, television assembly plant in Slovakia.

Sony's goals are to reduce investment in the electronics business by about 30 percent in the coming fiscal year and to reduce the total number of manufacturing sites by about 10 percent, from the current total of 57.

 

Ekibiogami

This all depends on how Profitable SOE is.

With out Numbers released from them its inposable to guess.

olddaddy

Could affect The Agency.

Hasn't this release been pushed back from Spring, 2009?

 

Cleffy

SOE is without a doubt one of Sony's least profitable sectors.  It maintains around 800k constant subscribers which is great for mmos as this equates to around $96 million per year, but its expenditures are much higher.  I doubt you will see layoffs in SOE, just cost reduction of equipment.  Its not like SOE pays alot for salaries.

Zorvan

Sony loses $18.5M PSP patent suit

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot Posted Nov 19, 2008 4:50 pm PT

Electronics giant's portable game system and other products determined to infringe on patent for sorting music on a memory chip.

Sony is being stung by a lawsuit once again, as a Texas jury this week found the PlayStation Portable and a smattering of the company's other electronics in violation of an Agere Systems patent for storing headers in music files on a memory chip. As reported by the Tyler Morning Telegraph, the jury found that Sony willfully infringed on the patent, and it awarded Agere compensatory royalties of $18.5 million.

When the suit was originally filed in March of 2006, it included infringement claims for seven other patents, with the slate of complaints being whittled down over the intervening years. Also since the filing of the suit, Agere Systems has ceased to exist, having merged with silicon and software tech firm LSI Corporation in 2007.

Sony is no stranger to the penalties of patent infringement. In 2005, a judge ordered Sony to fork over $90 million to Immersion Corporation for infringing on patents the company holds in creating the vibration function of its DualShock controllers for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2. While Sony opted to leave rumble out of its original Sixaxis PlayStation 3 controller, it eventually repaired its bridges with Immersion and licensed the technology for the DualShock 3.

 

Cleffy

I think the copyright system in the US is simply corrupt.  You have people making patents for things that are already invented, then suing the actual inventor.  You also have people making hundreds of patents with no intent of doing anything on it unless someone actually creates the technology, then suing them.  I agree there needs to be a form of intellectual property protection, but it has to be more substantial then an idea and limited to the process used in creating the technology instead of a broad term.

Zorvan

Originally posted by Cleffy


I think the copyright system in the US is simply corrupt.  You have people making patents for things that are already invented, then suing the actual inventor.  You also have people making hundreds of patents with no intent of doing anything on it unless someone actually creates the technology, then suing them.  I agree there needs to be a form of intellectual property protection, but it has to be more substantial then an idea and limited to the process used in creating the technology instead of a broad term.

 

And that has what to do with the patent infringement lawsuit i posted? Agere had the patent long before Sony used the technology, and considering they were a software company, I'm pretty sure they were using that patented tech or intended to do so. And apparently, the court agreed.

Immersion Corporation also had patents for the rumble tech long before Sony used it. Again, the court agreed.

Ekibiogami

Originally posted by Cleffy


SOE is without a doubt one of Sony's least profitable sectors.  It maintains around 800k constant subscribers which is great for mmos as this equates to around $96 million per year, but its expenditures are much higher.  I doubt you will see layoffs in SOE, just cost reduction of equipment.  Its not like SOE pays alot for salaries.

 

Can you point to any data to back this up? Ive never seen any Numbers for Soe in a Heck of a long time. Would be nice to get some idea thats going on there.

Zorvan

Originally posted by Ekibiogami

Originally posted by Cleffy


SOE is without a doubt one of Sony's least profitable sectors.  It maintains around 800k constant subscribers which is great for mmos as this equates to around $96 million per year, but its expenditures are much higher.  I doubt you will see layoffs in SOE, just cost reduction of equipment.  Its not like SOE pays alot for salaries.

 

Can you point to any data to back this up? Ive never seen any Numbers for Soe in a Heck of a long time. Would be nice to get some idea thats going on there.

 

Should also add that if the numbers come from a particular Vulcan-emulating thick glassed nerd with a bunch of guesses, don't bother posting it.

Cleffy

Hoover's Listing for SOE  Reported as making 150 million in 2007

I just did the basic math, 800k x10(monthyl fee)x12(months)=96million.