Nice cloudy morning and evening. Good for jogging.
- wong chee tat :)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Micron to cut 2,000 more jobs
Micron to cut 2,000 more jobs
BOISE (Idaho) - JUST two months after saying more local job cuts weren't expected, computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc announced it will slash as many as 2,000 workers by the end of August and phase out certain manufacturing operations at its Boise, Idaho facility, amid the weak economy and lower demand for its DRAM memory chips.
The company said late on Monday it will end manufacturing of DRAMs on 200-millimetre wafers in Boise, cutting 500 jobs in the near term. The 200-millimetre wafers are being shelved in favour of 300-millimetre wafer plants, which are more cost-effective.
Micron makes DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, a type of memory chip that has suffered in the last two years from oversupply and pricing pressure on chips used in personal computers and the slumping automobile industry. Its rivals also are hurting. South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor has posted five consecutive quarterly losses, including nearly US$1 billion (S$1.5 billion) in the three months ending Dec 31, while German memory-chip maker Qimonda AG filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
Hynix has said DRAM prices dropped 43 per cent from the third quarter.
Micron's latest cuts come on top of a 15 percent companywide layoff announced last October, in which it eliminated about 3,000 of its 19,000 total positions. About 1,500 of those were in Boise, as it shut down the NAND flash memory plant it operated as part of a joint venture with Intel Corp.
Now, Micron will employ just over 5,000 people in the state, down from more than 10,000 two years ago. Once Idaho's largest private employer, it will trail St. Luke's hospitals and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which have some 7,500 workers here.
The latest action will cost Micron about US$50 million, but is expected to generate annual cash savings of about US$150 million.
Micron plans to keep its 300mm research and development fabrication facility at its site in the desert near Boise, where it does product design and support, quality control and also has corporate and general services offices.
Spokesman Dan Francisco called those vital services for the company.
He said the 200mm wafer manufacturing facilities being shuttered will be kept in a 'warm-down state' and could eventually be used for additional, unspecified manufacturing activities. The company doesn't expects the moves will result in any disruption in product supply to customers.
'We remained hopeful that the demand for these products would stabilize in the marketplace and start to improve as we moved into the spring. Unfortunately, a better environment has not materialized, and we are at a point where we wanted to let our employees and the community know in advance what will occur later this summer,' said Steve Appleton, Micron chairman and chief executive, in a statement.
-- AP
- wong chee tat :)
BOISE (Idaho) - JUST two months after saying more local job cuts weren't expected, computer chip maker Micron Technology Inc announced it will slash as many as 2,000 workers by the end of August and phase out certain manufacturing operations at its Boise, Idaho facility, amid the weak economy and lower demand for its DRAM memory chips.
The company said late on Monday it will end manufacturing of DRAMs on 200-millimetre wafers in Boise, cutting 500 jobs in the near term. The 200-millimetre wafers are being shelved in favour of 300-millimetre wafer plants, which are more cost-effective.
Micron makes DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, a type of memory chip that has suffered in the last two years from oversupply and pricing pressure on chips used in personal computers and the slumping automobile industry. Its rivals also are hurting. South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor has posted five consecutive quarterly losses, including nearly US$1 billion (S$1.5 billion) in the three months ending Dec 31, while German memory-chip maker Qimonda AG filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
Hynix has said DRAM prices dropped 43 per cent from the third quarter.
Micron's latest cuts come on top of a 15 percent companywide layoff announced last October, in which it eliminated about 3,000 of its 19,000 total positions. About 1,500 of those were in Boise, as it shut down the NAND flash memory plant it operated as part of a joint venture with Intel Corp.
Now, Micron will employ just over 5,000 people in the state, down from more than 10,000 two years ago. Once Idaho's largest private employer, it will trail St. Luke's hospitals and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which have some 7,500 workers here.
The latest action will cost Micron about US$50 million, but is expected to generate annual cash savings of about US$150 million.
Micron plans to keep its 300mm research and development fabrication facility at its site in the desert near Boise, where it does product design and support, quality control and also has corporate and general services offices.
Spokesman Dan Francisco called those vital services for the company.
He said the 200mm wafer manufacturing facilities being shuttered will be kept in a 'warm-down state' and could eventually be used for additional, unspecified manufacturing activities. The company doesn't expects the moves will result in any disruption in product supply to customers.
'We remained hopeful that the demand for these products would stabilize in the marketplace and start to improve as we moved into the spring. Unfortunately, a better environment has not materialized, and we are at a point where we wanted to let our employees and the community know in advance what will occur later this summer,' said Steve Appleton, Micron chairman and chief executive, in a statement.
-- AP
- wong chee tat :)
Google users hit by mail blackout
Google users hit by mail blackout
GMail is used by more than 113m people worldwide
Business and consumer users of Google's popular e-mail service were hit by a blackout on Tuesday.
The service went offline at 0930 GMT and began to return for many users after four hours, one of the longest downtimes ever suffered by Google.
More than 113 million people use Google mail worldwide, according to comScore.
Google said it apologised for the inconvenience the e-mail blackout had caused its users.
"We know how important GMail is to our users so we take this very seriously," it added.
According to comScore, Google has the world's third most popular web mail service behind Hotmail with 283 million users and Yahoo with 274 million e-mail users.
Professional suite
More than a million business around the world use Google's professional suite of applications, including e-mail. Google itself relies on the service and press spokespeople for the firm were unable to e-mail journalists with statements regarding the problem.
Professional users are covered by a service level agreement that promises to be 99.9% operational in any calendar month.
The "premier edition" of the Apps service costs $50 (£34) per user for a year.
According to Google, its e-mail service suffered an average of 10 to 15 minutes of downtime per month in 2008.
The last outage of note was in August 2008 when users were unable to use Google Mail for "a couple of hours".
After the incident Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Mail, said in a blog post: "We're conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly."
On its support page for Google Mail, the firm said "A number of users have had difficulty accessing GMail today.
"The majority are now able to access their e-mail accounts again and we're hoping to have service restored for the remainder very soon."
- http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_342443.html
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7907583.stm
- wong chee tat :)
GMail is used by more than 113m people worldwide
Business and consumer users of Google's popular e-mail service were hit by a blackout on Tuesday.
The service went offline at 0930 GMT and began to return for many users after four hours, one of the longest downtimes ever suffered by Google.
More than 113 million people use Google mail worldwide, according to comScore.
Google said it apologised for the inconvenience the e-mail blackout had caused its users.
"We know how important GMail is to our users so we take this very seriously," it added.
According to comScore, Google has the world's third most popular web mail service behind Hotmail with 283 million users and Yahoo with 274 million e-mail users.
Professional suite
More than a million business around the world use Google's professional suite of applications, including e-mail. Google itself relies on the service and press spokespeople for the firm were unable to e-mail journalists with statements regarding the problem.
Professional users are covered by a service level agreement that promises to be 99.9% operational in any calendar month.
The "premier edition" of the Apps service costs $50 (£34) per user for a year.
According to Google, its e-mail service suffered an average of 10 to 15 minutes of downtime per month in 2008.
The last outage of note was in August 2008 when users were unable to use Google Mail for "a couple of hours".
After the incident Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Mail, said in a blog post: "We're conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly."
On its support page for Google Mail, the firm said "A number of users have had difficulty accessing GMail today.
"The majority are now able to access their e-mail accounts again and we're hoping to have service restored for the remainder very soon."
- http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Tech%2Band%2BScience/Story/STIStory_342443.html
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7907583.stm
- wong chee tat :)
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