Sun Microsystems plans major restructuring, to slash 6,000 jobs

Sun Microsystems has announced a major restructuring that will involve layoffs of 15 to 18 per cent of its global workforce, or around 6,000 employees. The company also announced a reorganisation of its software operations and the departure of Rich Green, executive vice president of software.

Sun's restructuring will result in a charge of between $500 million and $600 million over the next 12 months, with about $375 million to $450 million 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.

As part of the revamp, Sun said it is splitting its software organisation into three business groups – Application Platform Software, Systems Platforms, and Cloud Computing & Developer Platforms.

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 organization.

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.

In addition, Sun is splitting its marketing responsibilities with field and partner marketing going to Peter Ryan, executive vice president of global sales and services. New Senior Vice President Ingrid Van Den Hoogen will lead corporate marketing.

The moves come two weeks after Sun reported a loss of $1.68 billion first quarter loss as sales fell 7 per cent to $2.99 billion.

"Today, we have taken decisive actions to align Sun's business with global economic realities and accelerate our delivery of key open source platform innovations – from MySQL(TM) to Sun's latest Open Storage offerings," said CEO Jonathan Schwartz in a prepared statement.