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from the what-happened-to-just-selling-books-online dept.
Amazon is laying off "dozens" of employees at Lab126, the hardware-development center in Silicon Valley responsible for products like the Fire Phone, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Sources at Amazon "familiar with the matter" told the WSJ that the company has scaled back or halted numerous development projects, including a large-screen tablet and a smart stylus.
The WSJ's sources claim that the layoffs form part of a broad reorganisation at Lab126, which began last year after disappointing sales of the Fire Phone. This resulted in Lab126 combining its tablet, e-reader, and phone projects. In October 2014, it emerged that Amazon was sitting on over $83 million (~£54 million) of unsold Fire phones, which the company swiftly tried to shift by offering a substantial price drop.
It's not yet clear whether Amazon will continue its in-house smartphone development. Some engineers at Lab126 told the WSJ that development would be shelved, while another claimed it had been shifted to Seattle under Steve Kessel, an executive who helped spearhead the company's hardware unit and oversaw digital media like e-books and music.
Has Amazon bitten off more than it can chew with mobile devices?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @05:46PM
Because it's the suits making the bad calls, but you never see them laid of en masse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2015, @11:34PM
I was thinking the same thing.
We're looking at this at my work right now: next August, about 25 jobs are going away. The external review that came through was absolutely damning of the incompetence of upper management, failing to maintain us with modern - or even completely functional - equipment. Poor marketing decisions, lack of vision, no exploitation of existing opportunities, no leadership or direction, not even attempting to follow where others have gone.
The review was absolutely scathing, and recommended terminating funding and letting us all go.
Unfortunately, the guy responsible for this complete failure would still have a job. He gets around $80k/year and is clearly incompetent but the rest of us, those of us who can fix absolutely anything, will be out on our ears because we didn't work hard enough.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday August 29 2015, @02:14AM
Even if the suits do get laid off, the package they get will be comparatively much better than that of any of the engineers who may lose their jobs.