Technology news in brief

09.05.2005
Von Computerworld staff

IBM Plans to Lay Off 13,000 Workers

IBM plans to cut 10,000 to 13,000 jobs, or up to 4 percent of its workforce, mostly from its European operations. IBM last month reported poor earnings, and the restructuring is projected to cut costs by up to US$500 million during the rest of 2005, and by $1 billion in 2006. IBM will take a $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion pretax charge in the second quarter.

Siebel to Add SOA, Component System

Siebel Systems Inc. has detailed plans to roll out a new branch of CRM offerings later this year as industry-standard prefabricated components. The component-based systems, based on a service-oriented architecture, will run on multiple server hardware, portal and database platforms. The components are expected to be available by year"s end.

Capgemini Makes Cuts in N. America

Capgemini outlined plans to restructure its North American operation -- including 200 job cuts and the shuttering of more than half of its 40 U.S. offices. The cutbacks should yield $162.1 million in annual savings once the effort is completed by early July. Capgemini reported a 16 percent jump in first-quarter revenue to $2.2 billion.

IBM to Unveil Array, Storage Controller

IBM Monday plans to unveil a new 4Gbit/sec. midrange storage array. The IBM TotalStorage DS4800 can perform 42,000 I/Os per second and is priced from about $54,000. It will be generally available June 17. IBM will also introduce Version 2.1.1 of its SAN Volume Controller virtualization appliance. It starts at $44,500 and has a May 13 ship date.