Borland Software is doing more than juggling its software assets.
The company today said it would let go of 300 employees, or 20 percent of its staff. It also plans to consolidate some of its operations overseas and sell off its developer tools unit in order to save $60 million in annualized expenses.
Borland expects to complete the workforce reduction by the end of July.
The idea is to help streamline the company’s operations, making it a leaner concern as it goes full tilt into its strategy for improving the way software is created and delivered to customers.
After delaying its 2005 earnings results to review its accounting on some contracts, Borland this week declared a net loss of $30 million for 2005, on revenues of $277 million for the full year.
Borland CEO Tod Nielsen said the layoffs and overseas consolidation are an extension of the plan the company laid out last February.
“We believe these changes will not only streamline operations, but will also better align our resources for success in the enterprise,” Nielsen said in a statement. “These changes are designed to get us to an operating model that can more effectively support our long term strategy for growth and profitability.”
As far as selling to customers overseas, Borland said in a statement it will tailor its existing direct sales model for major IT markets, supporting customers in secondary markets through direct, partner and channel relationships.
With respect to the Scotts Valley, Calif., company’s plan to divest its developer product lines, Borland said the process is proceeding on schedule and attracting a number of bidders for the developer tools group, which includes roughly 180 employees.
In other changes, Borland said its has merged its sales and professional services groups into a new field operations unit. The move is designed give customers skills training and consulting earlier in their software creation projects.
Borland has also folded customer support into research and development to ensure better customer responsiveness, and created a new business operations function that will focus on aligning internal processes and systems to better serve customers.
Borland will hold a conference call and Webcast to discuss the changes in conjunction with its first quarter financial earnings call on May 10.
