SBC responded with a note that, more or less, said that its layoffs are the government's fault. While it welcomes competition, SBC -- and we're just summarizing here -- thinks regulators are ruining the industry by not allowing it to function, unfettered, as a natural monopoly.
"Essentially, companies like SBC are being forced to subsidize their competitors..." writes an SBC spokesman. "When you're forced to sell a product to your competitors for less than cost, things get turned around. Which leads to the proposed job cuts you mentioned in your article."
While Headcount is counting the seconds until its phone service is cut off, let's take a moment to review the past week's hirings, firings, and other telecom employment news:
Galvin became Motorola's CEO in 1997 and its chairman in 1999. Motorola had 150,000 employees worldwide in 2000; it expects to have around 90,000 by the year's end. Galvin, however, faired well during Motorola's massive restructuring. Since 2000, Galvin pocketed about $5.65 million in salary and bonuses -- and that doesn't include the millions he controls in company stock and options.
Judging from the market's reaction, shareholders weren't real keen on Galvin. Motorola gained $1.02 (9.20%) to $12.11, on a day when the Nasdaq Composite had slipped 2 percent in late afternoon trading.
Sources close to Corvis say Broadwing's service provider core is still intact. Richard Putt, Rick Calder, and Mike Stewart are still leading Broadwing's sales and business development efforts. Mike Jones remains chief technology officer. And the company hired Vyvx founder Delwin Bothof as a strategic consultant this summer, to help Broadwing add to its video distribution business. What is changing is that Corvis is taking over Broadwing's finance, legal, human resources, and other corporate functions, sources say.
Translation: Get your flower orders in and drop the black bombazine at the cleaners.
Innovance, which employed more than 310 employees in February 2002, has watched its long-haul peers transform or go under in the past six months. Ceyba Inc. closed (see Ceyba Shuts Down). PhotonEx Corp. closed (see Ex-PhotonEx? ). Xtera Communications Inc. bought the Metro-Optix carcass (see Xtera Nabs Metro-Optix Assets). And Corvis has more or less become a service provider. Innovance, meanwhile, just keeps getting smaller. About this time last year, the company cut some 80 people from its workforce, and that layoff was only eight months from a smaller cut of 25 (see Innovance CEO: Layoff a 'Rebalance').
Here's a summary of other industry appointments (and disappointments) from the past several days:
- Mosaid Cans CAMs
- Sprint Outlines Restructuring
- Corvis Morphs Along
- Alcatel Appoints Execs
- Inifineon Gets New IR Head
- iBasis Names Retail Exec
- Infineon Opens Pudong HQ
- Kamelian Gets SOA Design Win
- OpVista Adds Two Sales VPs
- DCL: Hiring Toward Profits
— Phil Harvey, Senior Editor, Light Reading
www.lightreading.com