Canon to Lay Off 1,200 - In Japan

Camera's are Canon's "sweet-spot", right?

Reports say Canon is laying off 1,200 "contract" workers - workers that are not on the company payroll but get pay through accounts payable, on a temporary contract.

At first blush, this does not seem as bad as laying off employees of the company - it is similar to firing your pool guy.

But - Canon has been changing employment structures for years. Today, every third Japanese employee is on a temporary contract.

Japanese efficiency.

Posted at The Earth Times

Sanyo and Panasonic -

Panasonic gets the "ok" to take Sanyo.

The impact of this merger does not carry the same significance as the RiKon deal, but still worth a mention- it's a nine billion dollar deal.

The takeover also alludes a more financial and timing decision between cash rich Panasonic and the primary Sanyo stake-holders - financial houses, Goldman Sachs Group, Sanyo Electric, Daiwa Securities SMBC and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking.

"This shows that Goldman is in need of cash and wants to recoup its investment quickly," said Shigeo Kikuchi, an analyst at Takagi Securities in Tokyo, to Bloomberg News. "This is a symbolic event in this recession. Whoever has cash is strong."

Good article here, by Chad Berndtson, ChannelWeb.

With the assimilation of Sanyo, Panasonic bolsters it's consumer electronic presence - could this have an effect on Panasonic's copier and printer business? A "spin-off" perhaps?

Fires, Landslides, Floods, Blizzards, Earthquakes and VAR's

So Cali is crazy nuts when it comes to "uncontrollable and unforeseeable acts of nature" 

An article over at ChannelWeb reports on how one of our local VARs is responding to the latest fires here. 

 His house was on the news because his neighbor used a pump to pull water out of his pool and save houses around his. That was just a few weeks ago - today, 26 inches of snow. I needed to be at a "mandatory" bid meeting at 9:00 AM. 

The mountains had the biggest snowfall since 1997 over the past two days. 

 I woke to a buried Land Rover and no electricity, at 5,000 feet above and 45 minutes away from the meeting. Leaving a voice mail apparently shed an extra 90 minutes grace in my direction - I began to dig the Rover out. 

With a great deal of help from two of my colleagues, one racing in from Orange County and one "stalling" the sign-in, I ended up getting to the meeting although my co-worker signed in for us. (to be known from this day forward as "Speed") 

Over 70 people at this bid-meeting - I am contemplating a detailed article on the "benefits" of working with county/government purchasing types - let's just say, you never get to work "with" them, only "for" them...