Thread regarding Riverbed Technology Inc. layoffs

Need to hit home run in q3 and use Hail Mary pass in q4. And also create plan B for self if affected

If im worried, you should also be worried

Curious enough, no mgmt has been laid off. Company is sinking, no clear guidelines and bad c-level decisions. Both Andy & Paul are doing a very poor work and Thoma Bravo should take note; they are the biggest responsible for the current situation. Aternity and AppInternals to be sold (most probably to an APM competitor) and NPM to be kept with SD-WAN while Scon dies slowly. Very bad past and present decisions and we as regular workers have to suffer the consequences. DON'T WORK FOR RIVERBED! They will NOT treat you with respect nor dignity, I can tell you

You obviously just don’t get it. The versa relationship is a blessing and a curse. To both parties.

A) we did not buy them (versa)
B) it is an admission of failure on steelconnect after years wasted on ocedo c-ap (that was a missed oppty that jerry bought using foreign assets so he did not have to pay tax on repatriating. The money. But it was commercial grade tech....)
Missed opportunities with connect have eroded the formidable base of steelhead and given EVERY other vendor a toehold into the massive steelhead base. And they (silverpeak, Cisco viptela, velocloud) are executing.
C) Versa is good tech BUT has zero brand recognition in enterprise space (that is why Rvbd is good for them)
D) they have decent - not great carrier - relationships. Often being the 2nd or more often 3rd choice of carriers (that is “ok” for Riverbed but not the silver bullet PM says it is)
E) the better together story of central and steelhead was conceptually good. But the downdraft or support revenue on steelhead, the pressure on npm side, and the only focus being ebitda is a k–ler to any effective strategy in what is otherwise a landgrab market where profitability is often sacrificed over growth

AE/PM will say...in positive spin so fast it exceeds Starfleet regulations...that this is ON PURPOSE AND ALL GOOD, to accelerate to an equity event.

OK, that was the original plan when it was one entity. You got stock, maybe bought more, and went Disney and wished upon a star.

Now, it’s chocolate and peanut butter time. The new division is chocolate; tasty and in demand. ‘Leftover’ division...classic Riverbed...is peanut butter. Not bad, but not great by itself, cheap and not that remarkable.

So when the equity event comes...and I’d bet sooner that later,,,it will be the sale of the new division.

At that point, what happens to peanut butter and its stock? Do the plain old PB folks benefit from said equity event?

Or, is there another warp 12 ‘explanation call’ in our future? (Assuming we’re still here...rimshot!)

By the way...we did NOT buy Versa; Jesus, I wish Johnny and Jane didn’t piss away SKO being drunk and stupid every year; that does not help.

Riverbed is a prime example of the "Septic Tank" theory of management - all the big chunks float to the top

Who said SH isn’t working out? Large enterprise customers, the market (RB is listed in the “others” group when SD-WAN leaders are listed), QA, Eng, Support, TAC...I was there when VA, the old eng VP, got rid of QA and said “let the customers find the problems “. That was two years ago, and here we are now. My deepest condolences to those of you who are still part of this.

If you look at the layoffs at scon eng, you'll see they are most likely stopping scon development completely leaving just enough people for sustaining of existing customers or maybe having enough meat to sell it off. Basically scon is dead.
And no we did not buy a company, at least not yet. Looks like the pivot is away from scon and maybe back to SH mobile/Versa

About half of the QA teams were laid off (app 80 from the department I was in). Starting at the Director on down. The team I was on 50% gone as of the first day. Two more days to go. Looks like it is going to take 2 to 3 days to lay off everyone selected. Not a normal layoff.

1. ...H !! you can't keep laying off people and say it's normal. Insane. You can't do business with a mindset. As leaders and mgmt team it's your responsibility to take business in right directions. Normal engineers suffer end of the day. Layoff the CEO and whole of mgmt team.

"Look, we bought a company last month ...." "I cannot believe the amount of people on here.... who dont know what the f— they're talking about." ¯_(ツ)_/¯

You have to go through some rain to get to that rainbow..Believe it! It's just a matter of time.

Is that just part of the "human experience"? spoken like someone that wasn't personally affected by this or any previous RIF.