HP looks to its long-term health - cuts 27,000 jobs

The hard times continue in the tech industry: HP has announced it'll lose 27,000 jobs by 2014.

That's 8 per cent of its global workforce. The cuts are expected to save the company $3.5 billion (£2.2 billion).

HP has suffered a 31 per cent decline in profits for the second quarter, and a 3 per cent drop in revenue year-on-year.

CEO Meg Whitman said she recognised the cuts would "adversely impact people's lives, but in this case, they are absolutely critical to the long-term health of the company.

"This is broad-based," she added. "By design, it will touch all of HP."

A third of the jobs lost will be in the US. It's not known how many of these will be in the UK, but Mike Lynch is among the casualties. Lynch founded Autonomy, a company making search software that makes scouring emails a doddle.

Acquisitions gone wrong

HP acquired Autonomy, but the deal proved less successful than HP hoped.

The company brought in Meg Whitman in September to replace Leo Apotheker as CEO, but things seem as bad as ever.

The company yanked the much-hyped TouchPad tablet PC, which ran HP's webOS operating system, from the shelves after just seven weeks, citing poor demand. HP also took over Palm a couple of years ago, but its Pre handsets went the way of the TouchPad.

Though Whitman has said HP plans to launch a Windows 8 tablet later in the year, as well as a tablet for businesses.

Via Reuters