Tag: financial results

IBM to slash and burn staff – report

Posted on January 26, 2015 by - News

IBM logoFollowing lukewarm quarterly financial results last week, reports claim IBM is set to cut over a quarter of its workforce this week.
IBM has currently a workforce of 431,000 people, but Sky News claims  that Forbes’ reporter Robert X Cringely is forecasting the job cuts.
According to Cringely, around 26 percent of IBM will get calls from their managers telling them their jobs are surplus to Big Blue’s requirements.
IBM has neither confirmed nor denied the rumours.
The report claims that the reorganisation is called Project Chrome, and the majority of people losing their jobs will be in the USA.
IBM has been re-engineering its business and last year sold its X86 server business to Chinese giant Lenovo.
It has also been focusing more and more on cloud computing, in an attempt to trim costs and position itself as a market leader.

 

WH Smith posts profits rise

Posted on April 12, 2013 by - News

smithsWH Smith has announced a profit for the last half year trading period.

The newsagent said it had seen a five percent rise in its figures, giving it a pre-tax profit of £69 million, with its successful “travel shops” helping it out and offsetting the falling sales it had experienced on the highstreet.

Its stores in airports, railway stations and motorway service areas saw a rise of seven percent, for the year ending in February, which outperformed the company’s traditional highstreet stores that rose by two percent.

The company also said various cost cutting measures shaving £9 million off its costs and outlining a further £8 million reductions in the future.

However it said that the trading environment would “remain challenging”.

The company currently has 621 high street stores in the UK and has also announced a move into China with plans to open 30 kiosks in the country.

Qualcomm raises 2013 outlook

Posted on January 31, 2013 by - Moving People, News

snap dragon Qualcomm has posted  strong quarterly results for the beginning of 2013, which have led to the company raising its revenue and earnings predictions for the upcoming year.

The chip company said saw its net income grow by 36 percent for the first quarter fiscal 2013,  hitting $1.91 billion, while revenues totalled $6.02 billion, up 29 percent year-over-year.

Qualcomm chief exec Paul Jacobs put the results down to a “growing global demand for smartphones” and the company’s portfolio of 3G and 4G LTE processors.

He added that the company’s broad licensing partnerships and “extensive chipset roadmap”, including its new Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and 600 processors, had also attributed to the growth.

Revenue from licensing fees grew by 20 percent to $1.82 billion, while equipment and services sales rose by 33 percent, generating the company $4.2 billion.

As a result of the stronger than anticipated results, the company said that it is adjusting its full year outlook from a previous revenue prediction of $23.4 billion to $24.4 billion.

Qualcomm also made some announcements regarding its senior level staff.

In a separate statement Qualcomm said that it would be saying goodbye to CFO William Keitel, who it retiring after 11 years at the post.

Keitel, who will step down on 11 March, will be replaced with George S. Davis, who is currently executive vice president and chief financial officer of Applied Materials.

Intel resellers expect more training

Posted on January 18, 2013 by - News

IntelIntel’s resellers have said they are not overly concerned about the company’s latest financial figures.

However, they have pointed out that they would have liked to see more money spent on training rather than the marketing budget Intel announced in the wake of its financial announcement.

“We’d love more training but if Intel is blowing its money on marketing we’ll probably only see promotional benefits,” one software reseller told ChannelEye.

His comments come as the company announced that it would be throwing $18.9 billion on research and development, along with marketing and administrative costs, this year, an increase from 2011 when it spent $16 billion in this sector, and  up from $18.2 billion last year.

However, that was the only good news for Intel’s resellers and stakeholders with the company
announcing that its profits were down 27 percent in the last quarter.

The company reported  a net income of $2.5 billion, down 27 percent from $3.4 billion, a year earlier. Revenue fell three percent to $13.5 billion from $13.9 billion.

However, resellers weren’t phased, hinting they’d been given advance warning.

“Software sales for us have been ok, but we were sent an email two weeks ago warning us of these figures.

“We’re not worried, a bit of pressure from the top is something we can easily handle,” the software reseller added.

Another continued the sentiment and support for the company, claiming: “It’s not affected us up to this point.

“We’ve still gained support and training as promised. I assume there will now be pressure however to ensure we sell as much as possible. Maybe Intel should invest more in products and training, which would help us sell more and boost revenues.”

In the last six months, shares of Intel have fallen about 18 percent. Although this could be put down to the economic climate, it is more likely that the company has failed to impress with its shiny, all dancing Ultrabooks, which retailers yesterday said were still stagnating on shelves as a result of consumers demanding higher spec features over fashion based products.

And while some resellers have stayed loyal to their mother ship, one was a little bit more outspoken telling ChannelEye:  “The news isn’t the best, of course it’s not. But the fact that the company has said it will be spending more on development and marketing can only be a good thing for us. Whether or not there’s more pressure on us to work harder to tighter margins remains to be seen.

“In terms of training, we do receive a fair bit but some of it is expensive. What we need is free workshops that have been taken out of a budget somewhere. However I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.”