AOL is chopping its employment rolls by another four percent — closing its Orlando call center and laying off the 450 employees there along with employees at centers in Jacksonville and Tucson as well as HQ in Dulles. Company spokesman Nicholas Graham told the AP the cuts were a result of lower membership numbers and increasingly savvy computer users who can do a lot of their own troubleshooting. He told Reuters, “As a result of this structural and strategic transformation, AOL is better positioned to remain flexible, nimble and competitive in the market, enabling us to expand existing audiences and reach new ones online.’
One theory already popping up is that the move is in preparation for a sale; always possible but it also simply could be a continuation of the shift away from subscription-related expense and eventually, a better backdrop for AOL’s revenue numbers.
Yesterday, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel wouldn’t talk about AOL; today it was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s turn. “There are many ways to get more volume (for MSN),” Ballmer said at a Gartner conference Wednesday.
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