Fujitsu cuts jobs at Amdahl after $500m shortfall

Fujitsu said today it will axe around 450 jobs at its wholly owned subsidiary Amdahl after recording losses of $500m.

Californian based Amdahl, currently an unprofitable computer and customer support services firm, will cut staff from its 2,600-strong workforce, after operating losses ran to $96m for the six months to 30 September. Fujitsu stated that the manufacture and sale of IBM compatible mainframe machines at its Amdahl plant will now shift to the potentially more lucrative markets of servers and software. A spokesman for the firm stated that the investment needed to develop the next generation of mainframes was not justified by the returns, adding that customers are moving towards servers with open operating systems. Amdahl Software recently announced that Storage Tek has increased its contract to resell its flagship storage migration and replication product, TDMF software. The new contract, which increases the total value of the deal to more than $3.5m, comes too late for the 20 per cent of Amdahl employees who stand to lose their jobs in the restructuring.