Layoffs in the high-tech industry are continuing. Polycom Israel, a branch of U.S.-based communications company Polycom, is closing its Yokne'am R&D center and laying off about 15 employees.
The Israeli branch is run by employees of the Israeli startup MeetU, founded by Oscar Glottman and Yisrael Drori. Launched in 1999, MeetU developed a platform that enables collaboration by private and corporate users with voice, video and data over the Internet. The firm was bought out by Polycom in 2002 for $9 million.
Polycom had hoped at the time to incorporate MeetU's data communications component in its own online conferencing system. The U.S. company develops and manufactures end-user accessories for video and voice conferencing.
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The firm is traded on the Nasdaq exchange with a market cap of about $2 billion. Polycom ended 2007 with revenues of $929 million, up from $682 million in 2006, and net profits of $62 million compared to $71 million in 2006. Polycom has about 2,300 employees world wide.
The company operated the center in Yokne'am with 15 employees, and a center in Petach Tikva which employees about 200 workers, based on the former Accord Networks, which it purchased in the year 2000.
In January 2007, the company underwent a crisis, which included the firing of a number of its top management. Yoav Livneh, Polycom Israel's COO, says that the layoffs cannot be solely attributed to the erosion of the dollar, but declined to elaborate further.
There have been recent press reports that another start-up, Unipier, which develops software solutions for cellular services, has also laid off 10 employees.
Outsourcing company IDT has also fired dozens recently.
Retalix, the Nasdaq traded developer of integrated software solutions for the food, fuel, and consumer goods retail and distribution industries, has also recently laid off 40 of its 1,530 employees.
Two additional public companies that have recently let employees go are Metalinks, developer of broadband wireless solutions, which has recently fired 60 of its employees, and Delta 3 has laid off 50 of its workers - about one third of its workforce.
Topspin Medical, which develops medical imaging technology, has recently fired 20 of its 50 workers, and ECI, which has recently become a privately owned enterprise, is set for a wave of about 870 layoffs out of its thousands of employees, though most will be transfered to an outsourcing firm, at least for now.
Some of the workers have approached the Histadrut Labor Federation in a last-ditch effort to prevent the layoffs, and the issue is still under discussion.
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