Oracle layoffs involving SPARC and Solaris employees allegedly unfolded on September 1, but the technology giant has declined to comment about the situation. Moreover, Oracle has just declined to comment to ChannelE2E about its short- and long-term commitment to Solaris and SPARC.
Multiple media sites and social media feeds discussed the alleged layoffs during the holiday weekend. The cuts, apparently involving 2,500 employees, arrive at a key time. Only days ago, the company crowed that it was hiring 5,000 cloud services salespeople -- in an apparent bid to compete more aggressively against Salesforce.com, SAP and Microsoft.
Oracle CEO Mark Hurd has repeatedly stated that only two companies will ultimately dominate the SaaS business application market, and Hurd's company intends to be one of those two leaders. Hurd has declined to predict which rival will emerge as its chief SaaS rival.
Still, the shift to cloud services has raised questions about the company's commitment to SPARC hardware and Solaris software -- acquired amid the Sun Microsystems buyout in 2010.
Oracle has declined media comment about the alleged staff cuts. That's a familiar strategy -- the company previously declined comment about earlier SPARC and Solaris cuts in the January 2017 timeframe as well.
This time around we've reached out with a slightly different question: What is the company's overall commitment to SPARC and Solaris development, both near- and long-term? Updated 3:18 p.m. ET, Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017: Oracle declined to comment to ChannelE2E about the company's short- and long-term commitment to SPARC and Solaris.
