MOTOROLA MOBILITY TO LAYOFF 800

Motorola Mobility will spend $31 million as it lays off 800 employees ahead of its planned acquisition by Google, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Motorola said in a regulatory filing that it would spend $27 million in employee severance and an additional $4 million closing a number of existing facilities. “Motorola Mobility continues to focus on improving its financial performance by taking actions to manage the company’s costs,” company spokeswoman Jennifer Weyrauch-Erickson told Bloomberg. Google announced its intentions to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion on August 15th. Google CEO Larry Page said the acquisition would provide Google with patents that will help the company defend its Android partners in lawsuits with Microsoft, Apple and others.

NOKIA LAYS OFF 3,500 MORE EMPLOYEES; MORE COMING

Nokia always said there'd be "substantial reductions in employment" but it's still brutal to see it happen. The manufacturer just revealed it intends to close its massive manufacturing plant in Cluj, Romania in order to shift high-volume feature phone production to Asian factories. The Cluj plant currently employs 2,200 people. Further "consolidation" of Nokia's Location and Commerce business will result in the closure of sites at Malvern in the US and Bonn in Germany, impacting around 1,300 employees. Finally, the company also says it'll review its production operations at Salo in Finland, Komarom in Hungary and Reynosa in Mexico, but we won't know how many workers this will affect until a further announcement at the beginning of next year. Nokia's press release says these cuts will take place by the end of 2012 and be in addition to the 4,000 job losses announced back in April

RIM'S FY Q1 RESULTS SUBPAR; Q2 OUTLOOK REDUCED; JOB CUTS COMING

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM) this afternoon reported fiscal Q1 revenue below analysts’ estimates, but profit a penny ahead, and a Q2 revenue forecast well below estimates, and cut its year outlook.

The company will pursue cost reductions, including laying off workers, and will buy back shares, it said.

Revenue in the three months ended in May rose 16%, year over year, and fell 12%, quarter to quarter, to $4.91 billion, yielding EPS of $1.33.

Analysts had been modeling $5.15 billion in revenue and $1.32 in EPS.

Co-CEO Jim Balsillie remarked, “Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter.”

He added, “RIM will see strong profit growth in the latter part of fiscal 2012.”

The Q1 results were consistent with RIM’s updated forecast, provided April 28th, of revenue slightly below $5.2 billion, and EPS in a range of $1.30 to $1.37.

However, unit sales of 13.2 million were below even the company’s reduced forecast for 13.5 million to 14.5 million units.

Gross profit of 44% was slightly better than the company expected, it said, based on a better mix of devices sold.

One bright spot: RIM shipped 500,000 units of its PlayBook tablet computer in the quarter, it said. That estimate was higher than general expectations on the Street for 400,000 or so units. (Barron's)

RUMOR: MYSPACE TO LAY-OFF HALF OF ITS STAFF

According to the NetworkEffect blog, News Corp's MySpace is going to be laying-off half of its staff. MySpace currently employs 1,100 people mainly in the US. It recently underwent a major redesign to focus its content on entertainment. The parent company has instructed MySpace executives to start "drastic cost-cutting measures" immediately. Most of the employees were given the week between Christmas and New Years off as a way to save some money.