RM job cuts?

[MK-2]

I know there was a thread earlier this year mentioning the possibility of RM job cuts, but it seems to be confirmed now:

RM flogging or axing units in painful shake-up ? Channel Register

[lordasb]

could be intresting we have easytrace here....

[jamesfed]

I've been saying for a long time that RM are failing because they have their fingers in too many pies.
They should cut everything down to PCs + Laptops (leave servers to the real bods like HP/Dell), RM CC<insert number here> and the KLP and leave it at that.

[ANiceEnglishman]

I'd go further and say leave Pcs and laptops to the big boys - Lenovo, Dell etc.

Forget CCx and offer an off-the-shelf design using Microsoft technologies which could be adapted to particular school's requirements.

and,er, what's KLP?

I do feel sorry for those who are going to lose their jobs, especially our former sales rep who went out to Australia to work for them and presumably faces an uncertain future.

It's a shame they never listened to me when I told them many times over the years that IT professionals were replacing teachers in specifying and running school networks and they would not pay premium prices for hardware, software or services.

[elsiegee40]

My cousin was made redundant by RM before the summer.

[Gatt]

KLP = Kaleidos Learning Platform (RM Branded Sharepoint IIRC..)

Glad I.. er.. "left".. when I did...

[Mr.Ben]

'RM will try to moderate seasonality – 60 per cent of its sales are skewed to the second half of the year'

Hmmmm, probably means us IT professionals who do use RM (I'm not one mind you) are waiting until the holidays when it is convienient to install large amounts of kit. I don't see how they expect to fix that, in fact they should be grateful for the business!

[Tallwood_6]

As you say to many fingers in to many pie's.
-CC3 customers are now going vanilla or looking elsewhere for managment options
-CC4 has blackened is name so badly that many wont touch it and development moves at a snails pace
-Resources have been poured into products like AppAngel (never released) RM Learning Platform (dont know of anyone using this) CC4 Anywhere (Costs far to much for many schools)
-Apart from prehaps the RM Mobile One & RM One the desktop and laptop line up are a bit of a joke
-RM Slate, nice idea shame about Windows 7
-RM Servers... why?
-EMC SANs not conviced with this choice.

[Gatt]

the RM Learning Platform (Kaleidos) is used throughout Salford BSF..
Thankfully, I was using a Vanilla solution at the school.. but soo hoping they get shunted to CC4 now

[IanT]

Interesting News...........

[irsprint84]

CC4 was set at a way too high cost I think they were to arrogant about it, think I was priced at 30/40k just for licences and this made people think vanilla plus I got a sales rep saying virtualising servers had little benefit! (a few years back)

CC4 should have been set less and made money on annual licences and say schools had to buy new servers for CC4 to make up some costs

[CHR1S]

Re-branding, re-naming and shifting offshore.... RM are preparing for some uneasy times...

[lordasb]

my biggest issue with RM hardware in the last few years was delays in getting spare parts, either purchased or warranty. normally rm one power supplies with the longer loom on the mainboard conection. in the end when they timed out of warranty we would head else where that had stock and could supply the parts next day. think the worse we waited for was about 7 weeks while a container load of them where shipped to RM.

re: sales being one sided to a point in the the year... do they not twig that schools get X amount and they hoard it till the last few weeks before finance window closes they spend the lot... ?

[russdev]

I agree to many fingers i said few years back things like Smartcache they should just partner up with someone who does that area fulltime.

@lordasb That is what they are saying they know that already...

However people are missing bigger picture and that is change of directors that is the interesting news the other news is business sense..

Russ

[m25man]

How the mighty have fallen,

They put all of their eggs in the BSF basket which I always said was doomed from the start.
They threw huge amounts of money at events such as BETT and other corporate schmooze binges to try and lubricate their way into the Heads pockets.
They seem to have expected the government gravy train would see them through a double dip recession.

Small independents have had to freeze prices and struggle for business whilst they signed up LEA after LEA into stupid deals that the taxpayer would have been expected to pay for for years to come.

Now it's payback time, it's a shame that so many good people that were Tuped out of their jobs and will no doubt be the first victims of the cull, but the greedy shareholders and fat cats at the top of the RM tree will hopefully find it equally as painful on the way down...

Of course there will now be loads of schools stuck with legacy RM products that have no future which will cost them twice as much to rip out and replace with something else!

Recessions are always a good leveller and I'm sure there will be many more big names that will be announcing similar strategies in coming months.