Although this is a sad situation, it is a very common one with a
public stock company. I work for a large telecommunications company,
and all of the telcom stocks are in the dumps right now, and layoffs
are happening in all of the major telecom companies. It is
interesting to notice how many changes in direction companies start
throwing out to the press when their stock is low. It is all an
attempt to get the attention of the "Wall Street Journal" to write an
article about the company and tell the world that they are embarking
on a new un-chartered territory in their respective industry. This
will in turn help generate interest back in the company to drive the
stock price back in the upward direction. All this at the high price
of many employees who will now have to seek employment elsewhere and
who eventually get re-hired by the same company who got rid of them
after their stock price rebounds.
-Have a great day!!!!-

Brian Franz wrote:
>>Well, I wandered over to the news section for the first
>>time today because, I was quite bored and have been
>>comptemplating in purchasing some stocks in Sonic Foundry,
>>since most of Vegas's bugs seemed to be worked out and
>>according to their fiscal year graph SF stock prices seem
>>to be at an all time low, so I was thinking it might be a
>>good time to buy, with hopes of a rebound. I was really
>>shocked by the ethics of Sonic Foundry's corporate side. Of
>>all the articles I read on that page, this paragraph stuck
>>out at me the most.
>>
>>"In conjunction with the Company's focus on software and
>>media management services, it has decided to enact a staff
>>reduction of 40 employees in areas not considered to be
>>essential to its core business strategy, decreasing
>>associated annual operating costs by an estimated $3.5
>>million."
>>
>>Hmmmm, being an electrical engineer, let me use my math
>>skills....3.5 million divided by 40...that's $87,500 for an
>>average salary for these employees. I thought, that's some
>>pretty good salaries. So I'm guessing that these are
>>people that probably looked at Sonic Foundry for
>>a "CAREER!!!" and had a professional background, but Sonic
>>Foundry has now decided that these positions are now
>>non "essential". Hmmmmm, I bet these 40 people would have
>>liked to have known this before putting all there efforts
>>towards a company that would eventually just look at them
>>as just another NUMBER. The thing that really throws salt
>>into the wound is that they boast about this on their
>>website, to gain increase in sales and market share....IT'S
>>A SELLING POINT!!!. Well my empathy goes out to all you
>>Sonic Foundry employees working hard to further the
>>development of this non ethical corporation. I'm just a
>>little guy doing audio engineering here in Detroit, but
>>this little guy would like to give you CORPORATE ASSHOLES,
>>a BIG MIDDLE FINGER SALUTE!!!!
>>
>>Thank you, Have a nice day :-)
>>
>>