Rumors are flying left and right about Brocade Acquisition in 2016, probably Q2 or Q3. Would anyone care to chime in. I am looking at this from layoffs perspective and could care less about the direction of BRCD's stock price - please do not speculate on this, leave that for Yahoo Finance, etc.
9 replies (most recent on top)
Well, Broadcom DID drop the less profitable BU's. They sold ICX and Ruckus products ARRIS- who no longer need HP. ARRIS saves 450M in cost on networking each year now. ROI < 2 years. Extreme buys the DC division for 35M plus 4 x 5M in 6 month payments. Seems like a low price- but even with butchered client base from a year in purgatory- made alittle money. Broadcom kept Brocade FC division and some are making a great living- others lost the spreadsheet profile contest and were laid off. All in all, Brocade spents Billions before the takeover/nmerger/transition to move/say goodbye to employees via packages, bonuses and transition retention bonuses. Lloyd Carnage trid to spin it- but he ki---d a great company to work for, go figure, greed must still a factor so some, a motivator for others. 5000 great people with good livelihoods and their families - 20,000 lives affector- but he got his money I guess. Dell, HP, Arista and Juniper came in and sucked up the disenfranchised customer base.
Absolutely the worst company on this planet. I have no idea how Brocade made it this far. Hopefully ARRIS will keep the good Ruckus product and kill the switching line and fire all of the legacy Brocade people. Rumor is Arris is planning just that.
For all your Brocade employee out there, here is some detailed information regarding what's to come and what to be expected.
First to understand Mr Tan's business model which is all about very high profit margin (also called operating margin) and sustainable franchise. For profit margin, here is how he does it.
-
Divest low profit margin business units (sell or shut down)
-
Use pricing power to boost gross margin; raising selling price and reducing cost
-
Cut SG Cutting SG if let's say it is 24%: 16% means 33% cut in R&D, or 1 out 3 heads will roll.
-
For non Fiber Optic SAN BUs, if you survive day 1 cuts, you should be fine until the sale process is complete. Again for whatever he cannot sell, he will shut it down swiftly.
Good luck to all and be prepared, now you are informed.
Just completed my transition out of classic Broadcom after Avago purchased us. Listen closely to those of you wondering about your future: Avago (Broadcom) operates very differently from any company I've ever seen. They have a unique approach on saving money that defies logic, but their stock price agrees with. For example, they'all shut down a critical acquired service with minimal preparation to highlight a reduction in operating expenses - even if the fallout in productivity and business impact incurres a greater cost because impact doesn't show up on the balance sheet. A more practical example of this (true story) is that their CIO will walk out of a meeting with senior directors flown in across the country to pick up a subordinante from te airport because he doesn't want to expense the $12 cab ride. After all, that $12 will be added to the overall expense of SG&A. The cost of a room full of senior management waiting 45 minutes for him to return is not expressed in accounting terms so it's less of a concern.
With that in mind, unless your product is churning a profit margin equal or greater than the rest of your portfolio, or if you are SG&A, you will be axed. They will keep approximately 1% of you (they kept 7 out of 200 of my team. All 7 took demotions) and they will disregard the value you provide because it looks better on paper when they no longer have to pay your salary. They'll shut down offices within 6 months of day 1 and eliminate/consolidate locations. Offices that remain will lose all receptionists, local tech support, and facilities services. So for those of you who are hoping to make the cut, ask yourself if it's worth working in this culture. Avago is night and day different than Broadcom was and they completely wiped us out.
Take the transition offer and move on.
I pretty sure more heads will roll from both Broadcom and Brocade once the deal closes. Broadcom just axed 1253 jobs last month according to CA EDD WARN report.
http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/warn/WARN-Report-for-7-1-2016-to-10-25-2016.pdf
I suspect broadcom will quickly sell off the BUs that aren't profitable. The remaining org will go through some serious layoffs as they scale to maximize profit.
Confirmed..broadcom acquires brocade..will divest all other assets except fibre channel SAN switching.. We(broadcom employees) got the mail from broadcom ceo
Could be Broadcom.
Brocade was shopping itself a few years ago but there were no takers. Fibre Channel is a shrinking market. Huawei may hoover them up on the cheap one day.