IXI Mobile Inc. (Bulletin Board:IXMO) will lay off 30 employees. The company, which is developing the Ogo that is intended to be a mass market BlackBerry, with telephone, e-mail, Internet surfing, and instant message applications, has been plagued by problems over the past year, which was marked by two previous rounds of layoffs.
Last August, the company fired 25% of its work force (between 30-35 employees), and just two weeks ago as part of a change in ownership, IXI laid off 30% of its staff (about 30 people). Now an additional 30 people are losing their jobs. Thus within less than the past six months IXI has fired 100 employees, with only about 50 remaining.
Two weeks ago IXI's founders Gidi Barak and Amit Heller announced that Israeli company Runcom Technologies Ltd. would invest $1 million in it, and acquire holdings of the venture capital firms invested in the company, which would give Runcom 90% voting rights in IXI. The deal was completed last Friday.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 11, 2009
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