SAP cuts 2250 jobs; Microsoft sues Kyocera; fighting crime with virtual reality

Enterprise software vendor SAP will cut about 2250 jobs, while creating a similar number of positions in other parts of the company, Reuters has reported.

The positions cut constitute around 3% of SAP’s global workforce, which numbers about 75,000.

A SAP spokesperson was quoted as saying: “There won’t be any impact on customers. We will ensure that we have sufficient handover time between colleagues who might be leaving and others taking over.”

Stefan Ries, chief of human resources at the company, reportedly said that the cuts were not part of a cost reduction plan, but rather a refocusing at SAP.

“It’s not about cost savings but rather being fit for the future,” Bloomberg quoted Ries as saying.

Ries reportedly said that the company expects to create about 2200 jobs in growth areas like its cloud business; its in-memory database system, HANA; and its travel and expense management software, Concur.

The company last year cut a similar percentage of positions and also created a similar number of jobs, according to Ries.

“In principle, this is a continuation of the (company’s response to) changes in market circumstances,” Reuters quoted Ries as saying.

According to Bloomberg, SAP will seek new placements for those workers whose jobs are cut.

“If I have a great growth opportunity in Middle East and I have excess of capacity in US or Germany, I am gonna offer those employees the opportunity to go to Middle East, to where customers need us,” SAP CEO Bill McDermott was quoted as saying. “We are not eliminating jobs but lifting and shifting those assets.”

SAP will also be offering early retirement to employees in Germany, France, the UK and the US, according to Fortune.

Microsoft sues Kyocera

Microsoft has sued Kyocera, claiming that the latter company’s Duraforce, Hydro and Brigadier mobile phone products infringe several Microsoft patents.

The patents mentioned in the lawsuit reportedly include ones for location services and text messaging technologies.

“We respect Kyocera, but we believe they need to license the patented technology they are using. We’re hopeful this case can be resolved amicably,” Reuters quoted Microsoft Deputy General Counsel David Howard as saying.

As part of the lawsuit, Microsoft reportedly requested a US sales injunction to block the allegedly infringing products from sale.

According to the Seattle Times, Microsoft is also seeking damages in the suit.

Prosecution in three dimensions

A team of researchers in Switzerland has come up with a way to represent crime scenes in virtual reality, with a system they’ve called the ‘Forensic Holodeck’.

The team is led by researcher Lars Ebert and is located at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Forensic Medicine.

“It’s the first system ever used in the whole world to visualise the 3D data of forensic scans in this way, so nobody else ever did it before,” Reuters quoted radiologist Steffen Ross as saying.

The Forensic Holodeck uses an Oculus Rift head-mounted virtual reality headset, alongside various 3D graphic and gaming software.

The system has already been used to help convict a man who fired a gun at police in an internet cafe, according to Reuters. CCTV video footage of the event was used to create a three-dimensional reconstruction of the scene and to plot the trajectory of the bullets fired. These trajectories were then able to be viewed through an Oculus Rift.

“The actual result we had is a case of a reconstruction of bullet trajectories. So we placed the people in the room and we were able to have a much better look at the trajectories of the projectiles than we were able to see it in a two-dimensional manner,” Ross was quoted as saying.

More information on the system is available at New Scientist.

Image courtesy David Shankbone under CC