Welcome!

.NET Authors: Liz McMillan, Peter Silva, Yakov Werde, Matthew Pollicove , Corey Roth

Related Topics: SOA & WOA, AJAX & REA

SOA & WOA: Article

eBay Layoff Rumors True

The move will save $150 million a year
By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
October 9, 2008 06:00 AM EDT
Reads:
 2,650

Those rumors about eBay making layoffs proved true. It's kissing 1,600 people good-bye, 10% of its workforce.

The move, which will save $150 million a year, isn't supposed to stem from the punk economy, which is admittedly hurting business, CEO John Donahoe said. It's more institutional and competitive.

Traffic on the site is down 11% over the last two years, though revenues this year are expected to be up 17% to $9 billion. Thank you PayPal, Skype, and StubHub, which are now going to see more investment.

With acquisitions keeping growth going, eBay said Monday that it's buying Bill Me Later, an online payment company second in the market to eBay's own PayPal, for a tidy $945 million. It will add larger merchants to PayPal. Users get a bill rather than pay with a credit card.

eBay has also bought Danish classified ad site dba.dk and vehicle site bilbasen.dk for ~$390 million.

Published October 9, 2008 – Reads 2,650
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025.

Comments (0)

Share your thoughts on this story.

Add your comment
You must be signed in to add a comment. Sign-in | Register

In accordance with our Comment Policy, we encourage comments that are on topic, relevant and to-the-point. We will remove comments that include profanity, personal attacks, racial slurs, threats of violence, or other inappropriate material that violates our Terms and Conditions, and will block users who make repeated violations. We ask all readers to expect diversity of opinion and to treat one another with dignity and respect.