In Another Sign of PC Trouble, Toshiba Cuts 900 Jobs

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Sep 18, 6:32AM EDT · Published Sep 18, 4:40AM EDT

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The PC industry has been under pressure for some time as the use of tablets and smartphones has completely replaced personal computers in many cases. Even laptop sales have fallen, leading to a new generation of device that is a hybrid laptop/tablet.

Toshiba, which is not among the largest PC companies in the world, admitted its own problems, and perhaps that of the industry, as it restructured its personal computer operation.

The company disclosed:

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) today announced that it will accelerate the restructuring of its PC business to focus on the profitable B2B field, and to control volatility in the B2C business by significant downsizing measures, including withdrawal from certain B2C markets. These moves are expected to support the business in securing consistent profit in the future.

And:

The company will also move ahead with actively promoting the IoT (Internet of Things). By fully utilizing its differentiating strengths in PC technologies, including BIOS, security, wireless and high density mounting, Toshiba will offer innovative and appealing IoT products and services in such areas as social infrastructure, the cloud, healthcare and home appliances. By deploying IoT which interconnects technologies in various business domains, Toshiba will accelerate building a business model that is not dependent on sales of PC hardware alone but that incorporates development of core technologies to deliver enhanced services and solutions.

These measures are expected to grow B2B sales to over 50% of all sales in FY2016.

Finally:

The restructuring announced today will reduce the PC business’s global workforce by about 900 employees within this fiscal year, more than 20% of the PC business headcount excluding manufacturing, and is expected to cut fixed costs by more than 20 billion yen against FY2013

Since the Internet of Things remains a poorly defined term, it is not clear what Toshiba plans.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.