Dell ANZ says 'no' to staff cuts

update Dell's Australian arm this week said it had no plans for local redundancies, although cost-cutting initiatives have started to hit the PC maker's international operations.

The Australian division has received orders to tighten spending, but there have been no redundancies made and none planned, local Dell spokesperson Marty Filipowski told ZDNet.com.au. "We have not announced any redundancies across Australia or New Zealand," he said.

In the past few days Dell's US headquarters has introduced a raft of cost-cutting measures, including asking its staff to take up to five days leave without pay, in a move taken by many US companies to avoid the need to make redundancies.

Filipowski initially said pursuing similar plans locally would not be possible due to Australia's different labour laws. However he later contacted ZDNet.com.au to clarify his statement, saying it was a reflection of local business needs.

Some analysts' predictions for Dell's core business, hardware, are dire. While software sales are expected to be shielded somewhat from tighter economic conditions, analyst firm IDC has predicted hardware to be the main casualty of a recession.

"Refresh cycles will get longer and there will be pressure on chief information officers to continue to operate ageing fleets of PCs," IDC reported in a recent research note.

The first areas of Dell's business to come under scrutiny in Australia and New Zealand would be its non-critical projects, said Filipowski.

"We're in the first stage of re-prioritising expenditure, as well as reducing travel and spending on outside services for non-critical projects," he said. "But in doing that, we always ensure that there will be no impact on service to our clients."