Commerce One confirms 1,300 jobs to go

Company hopes for management buyouts...

B2B exchange specialist Commerce One has confirmed 1,300 job cuts, reducing the workforce by almost 50 per cent. The company hopes to make the most of the cuts through spinning off a number of service operations, leaving 700 jobs to be axed from the core business. A spokesman confirmed that the company is hopeful a number of management buyouts will emerge from business units gained in its acquisition of AppNet made in June last year. The spokesman was unable to give any geographical details of the job cuts. However, most of the redundancies are likely to come from the US where the majority of the workforce is based. The company claims it currently employs 2,800 people, with only 240 and 140 based in EMEA and Asia/Pac respectively. In a company statement Mark Hoffman, chairman and CEO, re-iterated Commerce One's commitment to its core business: "By aggressively investing in out collaborative commerce product line, we feel that we are well positioned to compete in the current economic climate, and more importantly, during a recovery," he said.