Veritas plans minimal layoffs

Symantec and Veritas have gone to great lengths to allay fears of huge job losses as a result of their merger but unfortunately, there will be casualties.

Approximately 400 employees out of 13,000 globally are expected to lose their jobs when enterprise storage software maker Veritas Software and security solutions firm Symantec become one.

According to Gary Bloom, Veritas chief executive, the combined company will have between 2.5 per cent and three per cent in workforce duplication.

"Back office functions such as administration will be most impacted," he said.

Bloom told Asia-Pacific journalists after the launch of Veritas' Windows data protection suite in New York: "On a country level, we haven't settled on anything but we're going to look at what is the best and most capable team to put in place... We might operate as two separate organisations or just one."

At a press briefing yesterday, Robert Maness, a Veritas vice president, said the marriage between Symantec and Veritas was about innovation and not to "stuff up the competition and cut jobs like Oracle and PeopleSoft". Oracle plans to lay off 5,000 workers in a bid to cut costs.

The company will operate as Symantec once its $13.5bn merger is approved by regulators.

Revenues of $5bn are forecasted post-merger. Both companies expect to achieve cost savings of $100m over the first four quarters after the deal is finalised in the second quarter of 2005.

In terms of the new management structure, John Thompson, Symantec's CEO, will assume the role of chairman and chief executive while Bloom will be president and vice chairman.

Fran Foo writes for ZDNet Australia.