Dell lays off workers to cut costs

In today's podcast: Dell lays off workers to cut costs; OLPC almost ready to dump x86 for Arm; and SAP and Sybase join for mobile apps.

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Dell on Wednesday said it had laid off staff at different sites worldwide in an effort to cut costs and streamline operations. The company did not provide an exact number of employees it had laid off. However a company spokesman said that jobs were cut globally, including sites in Texas and North Carolina. The layoffs are the latest step by Dell to cut operating costs as it implements belt-tightening measures to fight the recession. Dell in February announced it would increasing its cost-cutting goal to US$4 billion by the end of fiscal 2011, a change from the original target of $3 billion announced in May last year.

One Laptop Per Child is set to dump x86 processors, instead opting to put low-power Arm-based processors in its next-generation XO-2 laptop with the aim of improving battery life. The nonprofit is "almost" committed to putting the Arm-based chip in the next-generation XO-2 laptop, which is due for release in 18 months, said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of OLPC. The XO-1 laptop currently ships with Advanced Micro Devices' aging Geode chip, which is based on an x86 design. OLPC's goal is to extend the battery life of the XO-2 laptop while building in more functionality than is in the XO-1.

SAP is teaming with Sybase to offer its business applications on mobile devices, including the iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian and Palm devices. The long-term partnership will leverage Sybase's Unwired Platform to make business processes from SAP Business Suite 7's available on every mobile device in the world. By the second half of the year, mobile device users should be able to access certain business processes, beginning with functionality from SAP's CRM application. The suite includes CRM as well as a range of ERP applications, such as human-resources, supply-chain and accounting applications.

America Online will close a research and development base in Beijing but keep trying to break into China's market amid the sliding global economy. The Beijing office, which opened in 2007 and has 56 staff, will be shut down by midyear given poor economic circumstances and reorganization plans. But AOL's Web portal for mainland China, launched last year, will continue to operate from the company's Hong Kong regional base. So will AOL sites that are separate from the portal, such as the Chinese version of technology blog Engadget. AOL also launched Web portals in Taiwan and Hong Kong last year, both of which will keep going.

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.