Citrix slashing head count

Citrix plans to cut 10% of its staff, or about 460 employees, the company said after posting disappointing earnings this week.

The move continues a rash of layoffs affecting the IT industry, with companies such as Sprint, Intel, Microsoft, EMC and IBM axing thousands of jobs.

Citrix is a prominent player in the application delivery market and its Xen-based hypervisor is one of the chief competitors to virtualization market leader VMware. Citrix reported year-end financial results on Wednesday: Revenue rose 14% for the year to $1.58 billion and 4% in the fourth quarter to $416 million vs. the year-ago quarter, while earnings for the year fell about 17% to $178 million and dipped year-over-year for the fourth quarter from $63 million to $60 million.

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton claimed to be pleased with the results, “especially in the face of an extraordinary worldwide environment.” But the company said it would consolidate facilities and reduce its global workforce head count, which had been at 4,620 employees as of September.

Citrix said the restructuring is designed to reduce annual employee-related expenses by $50 million, although the employee reduction will result in a charge of $19 million to $23 million, primarily in the first quarter.

With global IT spending expected to decline, the company predicted its revenue would drop 5% in the first quarter, which ends March 31. An earnings press release issued by Citrix did not say how long the restructuring will take or how the company's head count will be reduced.