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Technology Stocks : Newbridge Networks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: larry pollock who wrote (15075)	11/24/1999 7:05:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18016

Analyst appearing on CBC Newsworld feels that NN deal will be announced in December for about $50 Cdn or about $20Cdn higher than today's close.

To: larry pollock who wrote (15075)	11/24/1999 9:33:00 PM
From: Captain Jack	Respond to of 18016

<<" No matter how one looks at it, termination of employee positions stinks!">> Not always. Three people I know lost their jobs this year. One had to move but all received offers the smallest of which was 28% higher than previous salary. KANATA, Ont., Nov 24, 1999 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- Newbridge Networks Corp.'s new president, Pearse Flynn, is moving quickly to implement the corporate restructuring he unveiled last week. On Wednesday, the high-tech firm laid off about 300 Kanata-area employees, representing about 40 per cent of a global cutback involving 750 workers. The news was better than expected for the local region because the company originally predicted the Kanata workforce would be hit by about 500 of the layoffs. Flynn said the estimate changed as the firm started examining its staff needs in more detail. 'We wanted to move our resources in line with our priorities,' he said. These days, two major research and development projects are taking precedence over everything else and these are managed in Kanata. Newbridge is racing to complete two new versions of the data switch known as the 36170, which uses asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology. The firm is also developing high-speed wireless communications technology. Early versions of both products are already being evaluated by customers but Newbridge has a longer-term goal of trying to leapfrog its rival, Lucent Technologies Inc. of Murray Hill, N.J. 'The U.S. market is demanding the bigger products faster,' Flynn said in reference to the next-generation ATM switches, which next year will be able to process data at a rate of 450 billion bits per second. 'The 450 is going to give us 18 months' lead over Lucent,' he said. With R&D spending continuing at a high level, Flynn had to cut more deeply into the firm's administrative and sales groups to find the cost savings he needs to keep Newbridge competitive. Newbridge cut 200 of its European employees earlier this week. Another few dozen workers in the Asia-Pacific region will be affected and 200 U.S.-based employees will get their job notices by Monday. Newbridge's total workforce will be about 6,000 after all the cuts take effect. Flynn promised: 'That's the end of the layoffs here.' In the Kanata area, some employees received one month worth of severance pay for each year of service -- with a minimum lump-sum payment of four months' salary no matter how short the worker's tenure. This is easily double the minimum requirement mandated by the provincial government. Flynn said other high-tech firms are knocking on the door. 'We've had a number of companies in the local region already wanting to hire these people,' he said. Newbridge is expected within days to announce it will outsource about 200 customer support services jobs, possibly to IBM Corp. of New York. The company is also planning to outsource the bulk of its manufacturing operation, which employs between 500 and 600. 'I want to stress that we're going to move at a speed that we haven't been moving at before,' he said. 'That's why I've been brought in here.' Flynn hopes to have the manufacturing jobs outsourced in less than five months. He declined to discuss the extent of outside interest in acquiring Newbridge. 'I've got no comments to make about individual companies or acquisitions,' he said. On the Toronto stock market Wednesday, Newbridge shares fell 30 cents to $32.90.

To: larry pollock who wrote (15075)	11/25/1999 9:28:00 AM
From: Captain Jack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18016

Larry -- you seem very concerned with the loss of jobs. I have worked my way out of 1 position and down sized once. New technology I installed took another position I held so I do understand. With the loss of each of those something better was waiting in the wings with just a little effort looking for it. All in all it seems some of those effected at NN will not be in such terrible shape either with todays news article... as always education, experience, and past performance make a difference..... "Come January, things are just going to explode," Gough agreed. Shawn Mountain, director of recruiting at Ottawa's Procom, said the slowdown in IT hiring thanks to Y2K worries is compounded by one of Canada's less attractive qualities: the relatively weak financial packages companies there tend to offer. "I've had a lot of our consultants go down to the States and make double," Mountain said. The typical programmer right out of a university can expect to make between $35,000 and $40,000 a year, Mountain said. But those are Canadian dollars, which fetch roughly two-thirds of a U.S. buck. "It's a tough sell sometimes," Mountain admitted. Even so, he said, telecommunications jobs are there for the taking, particularly at the bigger companies like Nortel Networks and Newbridge Networks. "We have about 75 open requirements for people, and we probably won't find applicants for half of them," Mountain said. Procom might not get a lot of traffic from parts south, but it does draw clients from Europe and Asia. In addition to its office in Ottawa, which acts chiefly as a funnel for Nortel candidates, Procom also has outfits in Toronto, Calgary and Montreal, where business isn't so bustling, according to Mountain. Nortel Networks is the 800-pound gorilla of Canada's high-tech industry. The international telecom company has plenty of openings for engineers and programmers, mostly in Ontario. Nortel's Wireless Development unit has more than a half-dozen postings in Ottawa, including for software designers, hardware architects, modem systems designers and network designers. Newbridge Networks, too, has positions to fill in Kanata, Ontario, including slots for hardware access systems architects, ASIC designers and wireless RF designers. Newbridge is also looking for "world-class hardware designers" with at least four years of research and development experience in high-speed design, ATM, Mentor CAD tools, VHDL and Power PC technology. In Montreal, try SR Telecom. The company has a few positions available for double Es and their ilk, including one for a quality software engineer and another for an analyst programmer. SR Telecom is also looking for a new-product introduction engineer with a BSEE and at least five years of experience in RF or digital electronics. Finally, Montreal-based Vertigo Multimedia has several openings for software engineers.