Thread regarding Qualcomm Inc. layoffs

To #52979: I am #52839. Are you saying Mollenkopf is to blame for this? Because a round of layoffs also happened last year, and I think Jacobs was still CEO back then (or do you mean when Irwin Jacobs left as CEO?)

600 out of over 31000 isn't even 2%. If they couldn't figure out where to place < 2% of their own people internally instead of letting them go, it just shows that they don't give a damn.

To #52839, QC used to be similar to Google or even better. When project was shut down, Engineering Talent pool across the entire company engineering organizations was formed to place engineers. Mandate from top that no new engineering hire... But this culture was removed along with no-Jacobs as CEO.

@Anonymous52939 I am extremely gruntled with my job at QCOM. They have good pay, benefits and perks, especially for the San Diego tech sector. It is just unfortunate that the company is facing slower growth and needs to focus on core technology which results in layoffs.

@ anonymous 52939....you are truly an idiot. Why are you on this site? Worried about being laid off???

@Anonymous52939: take a hike, bitch!

and yes, it's only a job... move on.. find another one

Sounds to me like a lot of disgruntled ex-employees calling for the end of the world. There are many companies out there, move on. It's only a job and you should take pride in doing a good job. Your rant doesn't help anyone here and your predictions are just personal speculation. If you had any skill in foretelling what would happen, you wouldn't be laid off.

I wasn't affected by this layoff, but I know some people who were. This incident just goes to show that management does not give a sh** about the employees. At my layoff meeting, a high level VP explained that the "reduction in force" was being implemented so that the company could "focus on strategic business areas". Oh really? Then why not take the people who have been affected, and put them in new roles that allow them to focus on these areas? You know, kind of like Google did for one of my friends when his group was SHUT DOWN entirely. He got a full month to search for a new group and a new role inside Google. This is just yet another reason to get off this ship.

Bloated bureaucracies like Qualcomm cannot adapt fast enough. As Anonymous52810 said, we are too big a ship with too small a rudder. What are we trying to get into now? Automotive? There's not nearly as much volume in that market as there is in the smartphone market. That doesn't offer a big growth opportunity. What else did we try? MediaFLO? Mirasol, the lame technology in that Toq watch that no one wanted?

Sure, the need for new devices will always be there, but a new mobile generation happens only once every 10 years. The 1980s was the decade of 1G, the 1990s, 2G, the 2000s, 3G, and the 2010s, 4G. Once people have a 5G phone, they're not going to upgrade every 1-2 years just because a newer one has a slightly faster processor and slightly more memory, if their existing phone is good enough. If people upgrade every 3-4 years instead of every 1-2 years, that cuts our sales volumes in half.

That's why I think it's time to jump ship not to another chip company, but to another industry entirely.

Smart phones are gated by the infrastructure they connect to. 5G commercially deploys in 2020. VOLTE summer of 2015. As the networks build up the need for new devices will always be there.

Your arguments would be true if Qualcomm didn't adapt tot he market and follow new avenues. However, I believe the company will simply supply chips for any new technology that is coming up over the horizon. we could always benchmark QCOM against the worst company in the industry (TI) which has absolutely no sense of direction nor proper leadership. If we start to see the same trend with QCOM as with TI, yes, then we should jump ship. But until then, QCOM it is....

Not to mention our cumbersome and rigid processes are like that tiny rudder on the ship. It would take an act of God to get any change in direction...

Smartphones are becoming like computers. 15 years ago, computers were replaced because they weren't fast enough or because they didn't have enough RAM; now, they're replaced when they break. The same thing is going to happen with smartphones. They'll be replaced at longer intervals, which will lower Qualcomm's sales volumes. As LTE chips become commoditized, the higher performance offered by Qualcomm will become less relevant, and will allow companies like MediaTek to begin to take more market share. This will force Qualcomm to lower prices to maintain market share, which will put pressure on our margins.

Volumes down and margins down. Not a good place to be. Get off the sinking ship before the masses realize that they should be on a lifeboat, because by then, it will be too late.