Logitech axes 15% of salaried workforce as it restructures

Logitech may be bringing the heat at CES, but that doesn't mean it's not feeling the pinch. Alongside a few new pieces of kit, the outfit has also announced that it will be undergoing a serious restructuring as it moves forward. According to president and chief executive officer Gerald P. Quindlen: "During the December quarter, the retail environment deteriorated significantly, and moreover, we expect the economic environment to worsen in the coming months and we are therefore taking significant actions to align our cost structure with what is likely to be an extended downturn." Sadly, those "actions" involve sending home some 15% of its salaried workforce worldwide, and it's expecting the savings from all of this to show in Q1 of fiscal year 2010. Ouch.

[Poke4Christ @ Jan 6th 2009 9:45AM]

This doesn't belong here, but where's the macworld blog?

[absinthe party @ Jan 6th 2009 9:50AM]

They're axing a bunch of us here in Philips R&D, too. But, Engadget hates us, so I'm sure none of you care.

I've said this before, but can we get a rundown of all the tech companies that are slashing their workforce? It'd be interesting to find where innovation is stifled in various sectors down the line.

[Flaystus @ Jan 6th 2009 10:01AM]

Hello from the IT service desk.

[absinthe party @ Jan 6th 2009 10:39AM]

Uh oh. Does this mean I'm about to get boned?

[Flaystus @ Jan 6th 2009 11:03AM]

Na... I'm one of the tiny portion here who actually knows what he's doing.

[absinthe party @ Jan 6th 2009 11:30AM]

Yeah, I hear that... but shouldn't the fact that you know what you're doing be a bad thing on my part?

[霽月瀛台 @ Jan 6th 2009 9:53AM]

good idea.
My G7 sucks!
Setpoint sucks!
The sticky key problem has never been fixed by logitech with 10 updates, in 2 years!!!!!

[Agent .25i @ Jan 6th 2009 10:25AM]

Can u not just turn sticky keys off on ur machine? I did. I have no issue. Setpoint does suck tho.

[霽月瀛台 @ Jan 6th 2009 10:59AM]

It is my bad, I should say more clearly.
Sticky keys problem means when you set a Crt+key key stroke command to a key on the mouse, the control key will remain activated after you use the shortcut.
e.g. if you set Crt + W for Firefox on your left scroll, you keep pressing the left scroll to close the tabs and finally it closes firefox.
Crt key will remain pressed, and you have to press Crt on keyboard again to deactivate it.

[Agent .25i @ Jan 8th 2009 9:38AM]

Weird, I dont think Ive run into that before... Although, sometimes things are a little strange, and your right, I do remember having to mess around and found hitting Ctrl would solve the issue. What was i doing though? I think I was in game, and using a push to talk for xfire. I know I just changed my binds to something else and it never happened again.

[kastonie @ Jan 6th 2009 9:54AM]

man im about to lay off 15% of my workforce because everyone else is doing it.....

[Tarnation @ Jan 6th 2009 9:55AM]

@Poke4Christ

That doesn't start till 12:00 today

Logitech :( They haven't been able to duplicate the success of the original G15 and the G5 in my eyes so this is not a suprise. The G15 2nd Gen looks crappy and as much as I love the G9's laser the grip and feel is just not the same as the G5/7. Logi needs to partner up with Art Lebedev and make some awesome peripherals.

It probably also doesn't help that you can't make 3rd party game controls for the consoles due to "proprietary" wireless standards and such. I am looking at you Wii and 360.

[CosterMonger @ Jan 6th 2009 10:16AM]

before thy G5 their was MX518

but yeah when I switch (because my cord on my MX510 got snagged) to the G5 all was well

the only thing that ever annoys me about logitech mice is the teflon feet fall off, maybe they can start looking into some sort of advanced non-stick? :)

[Tarnation @ Jan 6th 2009 10:39AM]

I never had the feet fall off of my mice they just wear down and I find myself constantly cleaning the mousing surface to reduce friction. Except for the cheap ones. Those old cheap optical and ball mice with the tiny round feet came off a lot.

[Mobius_1 @ Jan 6th 2009 10:55AM]

I nearly bought the G5 but I couldn't stand the electric blue colour and I wasn't sure if the fate of my MX510 (having some fragment of something get under the button and makes left click very very hard and annoying) would be replicated on the all-too-similar G5. (Went Habu in the end, no complaints, really)

[Flaystus @ Jan 6th 2009 10:00AM]

Is bird the word thats out on the street?

[z0phi3l @ Jan 6th 2009 10:14AM]

Interesting that they said salaried, in most businesses salaried employees are executives and office people, not the people that actually make the products but the people that add cost while mainly just filling a seat. To me that's a good thing, keep the workers, and boot some of the extraneous people

[v @ Jan 6th 2009 10:33AM]

Pretty sure engineers and R&D people would be salaried too, they're definitely not "just filling a seat" at these companies.

[intrglctcrevfnk @ Jan 6th 2009 10:35AM]

Funny. I called logitec customer service yesterday and had the nicest conversation with a man in India. After I started talking about delay times is ms he told me he wanted to learn C++ so he could write programs for currency exchange.

Global economy can suck balls sometimes.

[PWC @ Jan 6th 2009 10:57AM]

Recently purchased an $80 Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and the rear stand broke off with minimal play. Now the keyboard is not stable! Cheap crap!

[Baba Booey @ Jan 6th 2009 4:07PM]

Hopefully they can still keep on going with Ultimate Ears...

[Jason @ Jan 6th 2009 5:34PM]

Their latest "illuminated keyboard" is unusable for a lot of people because Logitech engineers put up blocking on common sequences of keys. Sounds like their QA is getting worse and worse, so product and QA will be the first of the 15%

[Knives_Out @ Jan 6th 2009 7:09PM]

.. I've been waiting for an update to their revolution series for a while. bleh.