back to article Scandal-hit Toshiba cutting 7,000 jobs, heads for $4.5bn loss

Scandal-hit Toshiba has today warned that it expects an annual loss of Y550bn ($4.5bn) and plans to shed nearly 7,000 jobs in its personal computer and television consumer electronics businesses. Toshiba said it also plans to flog its TV plant in Indonesia and end sales of TVs outside Japan. Overall, it will shed 10,600 jobs …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Bugger

    All my recent TV purchases were Tosh - the Cell based tech it uses for image upscaling in its "Smart" TVs is fantastic. It is very difficult to see any differences between HD and normal DVD res.

    Pity, this means that we now have to either spend silly money for Sony or having everything pixelated.

    Oh well, on the positive side, this means that some can be picked up from post-Xmas bargain bin sales at a really good price.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bugger

      I would guess this is part of Toshiba's problem - Cell processor technology has become quite a niche, especially now that partners Sony and IBM have lost interest in it.

      I have no doubt you can get impressive image processing results with Cell but I would be prepared to bet there are cheaper ways to do it.

      1. auburnman

        Re: Bugger

        The cheaper way of doing it in the near future could well be licence Toshiba's technology for peanuts

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another PC maker to exit the market or sell off it's PC making arm ?

  3. CAPS LOCK

    Working on their aftersales won't...

    ...hurt. (Ex Tosh customer)

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The payroll pyramid

    Typical continuation of the decision making that got them into this fix.

    Everyone knows that 80% of the payroll is concentrated at the top 20% of positions.

    So this basically rewards bad decisions at the top and punishes the productive workers.

    1. Naselus

      Re: The payroll pyramid

      "So this basically rewards bad decisions at the top and punishes the productive workers."

      They did fire half the C-suite.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The payroll pyramid

        "They did fire half the C-suite."

        Half measures?

  5. DrTechnical
    Mushroom

    This Ain't The First Scandal...

    Dear Young Tech People,

    This is not the first tech scandal to hit Toshiba! Back in the late 80s, Toshiba was found to have sold VERY high-tech milling machines to the Russians, through a Swedish intermediary, along with high tech controller software for making the quietest propellers for nuclear submarines. Now this. Time for them to go bye bye. Shitty computers anyway. Worse than Sony's junk.

    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-07-16/business/8702220162_1_toshiba-sale-toshiba-products-toshiba-machine

    http://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/06/03/Toshiba-Machine-has-first-US-sales-since-submarine-scandal/8074707544000/

    https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19870816&id=wYMyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=teYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6667,3749454&hl=en

    There are many other articles on the web about this issue. The Japanese gave the Russians much quieter subs than they would have for decades. And all for the $$$$.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

      Thats not a scandal, selling to a customer that didn't nuke you even if it annoy one who did

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

        "Thats not a scandal, selling to a customer that didn't nuke you even if it annoy one who did"

        To be fair, that's probably got more to do with the fact the Americans developed the bomb first. If Stalin had had it, I've no doubt he'd have used it.

        If the Americans *hadn't* had it, and Stalin had gained control of Japan first by conventional means, he'd quite possibly- if not probably- have had them murdered directly or indirectly in their millions- if not tens of millions- as he did to his other political enemies or anyone who was the slightest perceived threat to his rule.

        It might sound exceptionally callous to say so, but the atomic bombing of Japan and the resulting quick victory by the Americans was probably far, far preferable overall to what would have happened in post-war Japan under Stalin's rule.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

          "he'd quite possibly- if not probably- have had them murdered directly or indirectly in their millions- if not tens of millions- as he did to his other political enemies or anyone who was the slightest perceived threat to his rule."

          But they wouldn't have been. Based on Stalin's previous activities, he would have got rid of the Japanese military caste and the Emperor (doing the Chinese a big favour) and then used the submissive structure of Japanese society to control the country. Stalin wanted buffer states and technology. He might have been a paranoid psychopath, but gaining a load of industrious people who would do whatever the current government said would have been a huge plus.

          The Nazis really did want to exterminate all the Russians, by working them to death in the first place. Hitler wanted Lebensraum in Russia and Ukraine for Germans. Since the politics of developed nations has lurched so far rightwards it has been fashionable to regard the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as morally equivalent. But they weren't. Even conservative (ish) historians like Alan Clark and Max Hastings acknowledge in their books that while the Nazis were pure, unadulterated evil, many Communists sincerely wanted to create a better society. Propaganda officers were attached to the Red Army to persuade people that it was their duty to kill Germans, but the attitude to Japan was one of near-neutrality until very late in the War. There was no effort to create any kind of anti-Japanese feeling.

          I'm not saying that Russian occupation would have been good or better for Japan, just that ridiculous hyperbole is just that.

      2. Eddy Ito

        Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

        Perhaps they just saw the writing on the wall and figured it wasn't the big deal bloviating politicians wanted folks to think it was. Sure the "Ruskies" got quieter subs but arms reduction talks were proceeding, Reagan had the Saudi's cutting Russia's oil revenue through high supply and lower prices, and shortly there after the Berlin wall fell and the cold war ended in late '89. That means Toshiba was punished for a few years after the Red threat was officially over.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

      @DrTechnical re:"And all for the $$$$."

      That's kind of why companies are in business. They're not doing it for love of country, especially the defence companies, but love of money. In fact, most US firms operate a money first, people second policy.

      There are many examples of US and UK business that have similarly broken sanctions rules, but because they're too big or important to fail, they get special treatment from the government and usually (relatively) paltry fines.

      Kind of makes a mockery of "a nation of laws". As they say, The Bigger the Criminal, The Smaller the Penalty.

    3. eldakka

      Re: This Ain't The First Scandal...

      " Toshiba was found to have sold VERY high-tech milling machines to the Russians,..."

      Did they make or lose money on the deal? If they made a profit, I don't see the problem.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ... and a culture that prevented staff from questioning executives’ poor decisions.

    That doesn't happen in Western business culture. ... oh wait ...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    A three way merger with Sony and VW could help...

    They could call themselves Tosh Wagenson. If this new super-conglomerate still made cars, their satnav would of course be named 'RouteKit'.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A three way merger with Sony and VW could help...

      This is a bit unfair to Sony, whose last scandal was years ago and who continues to put lanyard holes in their near-waterproof phones, thus being the only phone manufacturer who seems able to understand the needs of people who walk dogs in rural areas.

  8. Duffaboy

    Karma

    Shame they can't honour a warranty either, take you money and run. Merry Christmas

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Ullo "Toshiba", er, Dixons, got a load of rebranded Tosh?

    "Toshiba said it also plans to flog its TV plant in Indonesia and end sales of TVs outside Japan."

    Wouldn't surprise me if in the near future Toshiba did something similar to Pioneer. Having pulled out of the television market a while before, they announced an agreement with Dixons...

    Dixons Retail Announces Exclusive Partnership with Pioneer to "to source, develop, produce and sell Pioneer TVs in selected European markets."

    Which is another way to say slap-a-well-known-brand-on-a-generic-set-licensing such that "New Pioneer LED TV Is Rebadged Thomson Made By China’s TCL.

    Dixons also have a similar agreement with JVC.

    What an irony; Dixons once had their cod-Japanese brands Saisho and Matsui, and now they have a "real live" one from that same industry in decline, reducing it to little better than Saisho in the process.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 'Ullo "Toshiba", er, Dixons, got a load of rebranded Tosh?

      Scoff at DSG if it makes your ego feel better. My wife works for them. They are a good employer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 'Ullo "Toshiba", er, Dixons, got a load of rebranded Tosh?

        Why would you read my comment and assume it had anything to do with "ego"? It sounds like you're the one with personal involvement and a prickly response.

        Maybe they're a good employer now, I wouldn't know. They did have a reputation for clueless "students on saturday job" employees and crap service (can't comment specifically on your wife, I don't know her personally). Maybe they improved that because they had to, maybe they didn't, haven't been there in years.

        Personally, the main problem I have is branding that's intended to mislead. Matsui and Saisho were intentionally cod-Japanese (and apparently they even used misleading marketing to suggest that they were). I never cared- I knew they were own-brands- but the use of "big name" brands that are either hired out or bought from the bankruptcy of the original company then used on generic electronics is even more misleading, IMHO.

        DSG aren't the only guilty party here; Asda have the rights to the "Polaroid" name (#) brand in the UK for audiovisual technology, i.e. it has as much value as Tesco's "Technika" brand in that context, but it's trading off the name reputation.

        That said, I did have a Matsui "Midi" audio system (##) I bought in the late 80s, and while it was never great- you wouldn't expect a £99 "hifi" to be so- I used it regularly for over a decade and intermittently for a further few years with no real problems (###) (####). But Saisho and Matsui definitely had a patchy reputation in general.

        (#) Which has been comprehensively whored out since the original company went bankrupt around fifteen years ago

        (##) This exact model, though that's not my one

        (###) Actually the record deck never got used much anyway; I'd only had cassettes up until then, and my parents bought a CD player literally a month later, so most of my new purchases were in that format

        (####) I just remembered, they took my money for that hifi then never got the damn thing in stock until my parents made a fuss about it :-/

  10. ben_myers

    Close or sell off Toshiba PC and hard drive divisions

    Toshiba might as well cut its losses now and either close or sell off its personal computer (mostly laptop) and hard drive divisions. Toshiba laptops are poorly made from cheap materials and difficult to repair. Unlike HPaq, Lenovo and Dell, Toshiba does not put any useful info on its web site, especially repair and maintenance info. Spare parts are difficult to find. Why would anyone buy a Toshiba laptop? Damned if I know. Toshiba laptop drives have possibly the worst reliability in the industry. Why would someone buy one? Because that self-same buyer is Toshiba, needing drives for its awful laptops.

  11. Muskiier

    Toshiba's Tecra laptop product is great

    The Tecra product line was and is good. Silly bloatware aside, like all the other OEMs, it is and was great product. Until weeks ago we had ten year old Tecras that I hated to put in the bin because they still worked. Not so leading edge in the last few years, however; plus I agree their website needs an overhaul, it is not easy to research. It's a tough and changing business in the PC world. I wonder how the numbers are for their other business units?

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