Sun cuts 3,000 jobs blaming merger delay

In a regulatory filing Sun announced that delays in its merger with Oracle would force it to cut 3,000 jobs over the next 12 months.

In the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) the company said it would be making the cuts in all geographical areas.

Sun estimates the layoffs will cost between US$75and US$125 million ($81 and $135 million).

“In light of the delay in the closing of the acquisition of the Company, approved a plan to better align the Company’s resources with its strategic business objectives, including reducing its workforce across the North America, EMEA, APAC and Emerging Markets regions by up to 3,000 employees over the next 12 months,” said the filing.

The company said that it had to make the cuts because of the delay by the EU in approving the merger. Oracle has already warned that any delay hurts Sun’s bottom line and the company has not had a good last two quarters.

These are not the first job cuts for the troubled company. In November it laid off 6,000 staff in an effort to cut costs and improve efficiency.

Oracle’s chief executive Larry Ellison used a keynote address at last week’s Oracle OpenWorld 2009 to reassert Oracle’s commitment to Sun and its portfolio.

He guaranteed that Oracle would spend more developing Sun’s core technologies of Sparc, Solaris, MySQL and Java than Sun had.