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AOL lays off 450 California employees (or 50% of its online workers in CA)
News.com ^
| 12/09/03
| Paul Festa
Posted on 12/09/2003 5:46:31 PM PST by BurbankKarl
In an attempt to streamline its business, America Online on Tuesday consolidated its California operations, cutting about half its software development positions and shuttering two offices.
Of the 450 people who lost their California jobs, 375 were in Mountain View, 50 in San Francisco, and 25 in San Diego. The layoffs affect more than 2 percent of the company's total work force of about 19,000 employees.
AOL offered 100 of the affected workers employment in its Dulles, Va., and White Plains, N.Y., offices. No senior management positions were included in the layoffs.
AOL said the San Francisco and San Diego development offices will close by the end of the year. About 75 developers will remain in AOL's Irvine office for southern California, and about 300 will remain in Mountain View in Silicon Valley, in the northern part of the state.
AOL said the laid-off developers were working on a broad range of projects including streaming media, electronic wallets and address books.
Remaining developers were concentrated in projects such as voice services, calendars, radio and AOL Communicator.
A company representative said the layoffs were part of AOL's ongoing efforts to manage costs.
AOL in July laid off 50 developers at its Mountain View-based Netscape Communications unit. The company has been under intense pressure to improve its performance after dragging down the earnings and stock price of Time Warner, which merged with AOL to become AOL Time Warner before dropping AOL from its name this year.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: aol; aolsux; byebyeca
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To: BurbankKarl
I must get a new "two free months!" CD sent to me every other week...
2
posted on
12/09/2003 5:49:22 PM PST
by
ambrose
To: BurbankKarl
They could get the same work done cheaper in Alabama =o)
3
posted on
12/09/2003 5:49:58 PM PST
by
GeronL
(My tagline for rent..... $5 per month or 550 posts/replies, whichever comes first... its a bargain!!)
To: GeronL
My sympathies to those losing their jobs.
4
posted on
12/09/2003 5:51:35 PM PST
by
Ciexyz
To: BurbankKarl
My sympathies for the workers, too. I used to know some of the techies at CompuServe, and still keep up with a few of them. It was a sad business when they got taken over by AOL.
As far as I can see, real software development has practically ceased there, except for changing the bells and whistles. And AOL never did good software work in the first place. Not to get into proprietary details, their beta testing is a laugh. They were too busy figuring out how to squeeze in more ads.
5
posted on
12/09/2003 6:00:22 PM PST
by
Cicero
(Marcus Tullius)
To: BurbankKarl
Not a loss. If they laid off all 19,000 the company might actually improve.
6
posted on
12/09/2003 6:01:04 PM PST
by
Beck_isright
(If the UN left New York and the Demorats left D.C. forever, would that qualify as the 2nd coming?)
To: GeronL
They could get the same work done cheaper in Alabama
Too expensive. Try India.
7
posted on
12/09/2003 6:02:50 PM PST
by
lelio
To: BurbankKarl
I got notice that Netscape is coming out as an ISP.
AOL is getting weird.
8
posted on
12/09/2003 6:04:24 PM PST
by
gcruse
(http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
To: lelio
I'm sorry Mr.CEO, I should have known better
9
posted on
12/09/2003 6:04:47 PM PST
by
GeronL
(My tagline for rent..... $5 per month or 550 posts/replies, whichever comes first... its a bargain!!)
To: gcruse
Will the Netscape ISP be a cut rate one like NetZero? Is the competition getting hard for AOL??
10
posted on
12/09/2003 6:05:40 PM PST
by
GeronL
(My tagline for rent..... $5 per month or 550 posts/replies, whichever comes first... its a bargain!!)
To: GeronL
The notice I got was unlimited usage for $9.95 a month. It's actually a good deal. If I didn't have so much invested in my ATT addy, it would be tempting.
11
posted on
12/09/2003 6:07:53 PM PST
by
gcruse
(http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
To: BurbankKarl
They're still in business?
Who would use such c*@p
To: gcruse
Sounds like NetZero and some of the other companies.. they offer straight internet and not all those annoying addatives AOL thrusts upon people. Its probably MORE profitable too.
I used the 2 free months from AOL and then paid for a year of NetZero...
13
posted on
12/09/2003 6:14:46 PM PST
by
GeronL
(My tagline for rent..... $5 per month or 550 posts/replies, whichever comes first... its a bargain!!)
To: RIGHT IN LAS VEGAS
Who would use such c*@pA whole lot of folks who couldn't spell computer when they bought one.
My guess is that one in 10,000 people who utilize computers feel they are minimally, technically competent. One in 50,000 might be.
To: BurbankKarl
Lets see, the stock market taps 10,000 today, SBC lays off 4000, and now AOL lays off 450. Did I miss the turnaround in the economy?
15
posted on
12/09/2003 6:29:09 PM PST
by
winker
To: BurbankKarl
AOL Time Warner is the top contributor to the Howard Dean campaign:
HOWARD DEAN (D)
Top Contributors
Cycle: AOL Time Warner
$61,975
University of California
$54,874
Microsoft Corp
$25,100
IBM Corp
$23,750
Harvard University
$22,650
Dean for America
$19,893
Goldman Sachs
$16,500
Emory University
$16,050
University of Pennsylvania
$15,500
Skadden, Arps et al
$15,449
Stanford University
$15,000
Citigroup Inc
$14,100
Dartmouth College
$13,750
Hewlett-Packard
$12,850
McKenna, Long & Aldridge
$12,700
State of Vermont
$12,680
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
$12,500
University of Texas
$12,299
Morgan Stanley
$11,450
Walt Disney Co
$11,450
* All Cycles displays total contributions to this candidate's federal campaigns since the 1989-1990 election cycle.
16
posted on
12/09/2003 6:47:10 PM PST
by
Tamzee
(Pennsylvanians for Bush! Join http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PA4BushCheney/)
AOL = Always Off Line
17
posted on
12/09/2003 6:57:20 PM PST
by
CounterCounterCulture
(Anagram of my screenname: TRUE UNCLE TRUER COCONUT)
To: CounterCounterCulture
AOL = Always Off Line Don't forget "AO-Hell". As another poster pointed out, their software is junk. I don't know how many problems I fixed when I did computer consulting that were caused by AO-Hell installations. Of course they were Windoze based PC's which usually crashed if you looked at them wrong anyway.
To: GeronL
AOL is the internet on training wheels.
;}
19
posted on
12/09/2003 7:50:29 PM PST
by
Siegfried
(I ain't gonna work on Bill Gates' farm no more!)
To: BurbankKarl
Funny, I was just thinking about suggesting that those of us on AOL start a campaign to change providers.
AOL is part of Time Warner. Time magazine just did the story on the Iraq terrorists. Real close.
As a part of my suggestion, I was thinking maybe we at FR could create our own ISP.
Hell, I only use AOL to come here, he he. Might as well pass them by, and keep money away from them to boot.
Anyone else thinking the same?
Maybe Jim Rob could take FR to a higher level than he already has.
20
posted on
12/09/2003 7:58:25 PM PST
by
CT
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