The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/04/visto_job_cuts/

BlackBerry rival Visto pushes job cuts

A third of London office gets the chop

By Christopher Williams

Posted in Mobile, 4th April 2008 07:02 GMT

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Visto, the Silicon Valley push email developer, told London staff on Thursday that about one third are for the chop, because financial backers are demanding a profit this year.

The London round of cuts is described by sources as "large scale", affecting senior IT staff, development, product services and pre-sales workers. A Visto US representative today confirmed "limited lay-offs" worldwide, but declined to talk numbers or locations.

Visto also has offices in Madrid, Milan and Paris.

Sources say the Redwood City-based firm is under big pressure to start bringing returns on the $300m-plus venture funding sunk over several rounds into the company, which was set up in 1996. The privately-held firm has announced its intention to IPO four times in four years [1].

"I guess our share options won't be worth much now either, huh," said one source. "We're all on the job hunt here - never seen so many job website pages open in one place before."

In recent years Visto has launched a series of patent litigations against RIM [2], Microsoft [3], Seven Networks [4], and Good Technology [5]. ®