News

Report: VMware Lays Off 900

vCloud Air workers seemed to bear the brunt of the cuts.

• By Keith Ward
• 01/26/2016

VMware has begun laying off employees in the wake of the purchase of parent company EMC Software by Dell, according to a news report.

Fortune's Barb Darrow reported earlier today that the layoffs began yesterday, citing company sources and a message board in which employees are anonymously discussing their experiences.

Darrow wrote that "various parts of the vCloud Air teams—personnel in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), the Burlington, Ontario, customer support group, and Colorado—were cut." 

A Virtualization Review source has also confirmed the layoffs, including those from the Canadian support center.

Fortune reported last week that about 900 workers were scheduled to be laid off in total. VMware is believed to have about 18,000 employees globally.

VMware 's fourth-quarter 2015 earnings report is scheduled to be released today, with a conference call to be held at 5 p.m. ET. It's unknown if company executives will address the layoffs during the call.

The specter of layoffs has loomed over VMware ever since it was revealed last October that Dell was going to buy EMC for $67 billion. There wasn't a lot of overlap between VMware's core business and Dell's, but cost cutting frequently follows such mergers.

Some of the comments on the message board, from the site TheLayoff.com, provide insight into the areas that are hardest hit. One commenter wondered if vCloud Air -- VMware's private/hybrid cloud platform -- is in trouble: "I'm an alliance partner. What I'm seeing is that most of these cuts are coming from vCloud Air. Is VMware giving up on that product?"

Another one says that "VMWARE is suffering. Weak middle management decisions leave a lot of employess (sic) woundering (sic) direction and nothing gets done. There is no accountability and it is definitely who you know."

Perhaps the most ominous post on the site was from this poster: "We all know that there is a layoff going on right now. My question is: Is there more to come later this year? Is this the only round of layoff in 2016?" It's a question VMware employees are likely to be asking themselves throughout the year.