Salesforce is laying off over 1,000 employees while also hiring new staff to market its artificial intelligence technologies, according to Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
TakeAway Points:
- Salesforce is cutting more than 1,000 jobs as it simultaneously hires workers to sell new artificial intelligence products, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.
- Attorneys for Alphabet’s Google and “Fortnite” developer Epic Games faced battle Monday in a U.S. appeals court in California as Google attempts to overturn a judge’s ruling requiring it to redesign its app store and a jury verdict.
Slash in workforce
Displaced workers will be able to apply for other jobs internally, the Bloomberg report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
The report also added that it couldn’t be determined which divisions the reductions were focused on.
The customer relationship management software maker had 72,682 employees as of Jan. 31, 2024, it said in its annual report.
In December last year, CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce has closed more than 1,000 paid deals for “Agentforce,” its platform for creating AI-powered virtual representatives.
The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2024 that Salesforce was laying off about 700 employees. Bloomberg News also reported later in July 2024 that the company cut about 300 more jobs.
Salesforce is set to report its quarterly earnings on Feb. 26.
Google asks US appeals court to overturn app store verdict
Lawyers for Alphabet’s Google and “Fortnite” maker Epic Games squared off before a U.S. appeals court in California on Monday as Google tries to undo a jury verdict and a judge’s order forcing it to revamp its app store.
Google’s lawyer argued to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a trial judge made legal errors in the antitrust case that unfairly benefitted Epic Games.
Epic accused Google in a 2020 lawsuit of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and how they pay for transactions within apps. The Cary, North Carolina-based company convinced a San Francisco jury in 2023 that Google illegally stifled competition.
U.S. District Judge James Donato ordered Google in October to restore competition by allowing users to download rival app stores within its Play store and by making Play’s app catalogue available to those competitors, among other reforms.
The order is on hold as the 9th Circuit weighs Google’s appeal.
Attorney Jessica Ellsworth, representing Google, told the appeals court that the tech company’s Play Store competes fiercely with Apple’s App Store and that Donato unfairly barred Google from more broadly making that point.
Epic mostly lost a parallel antitrust lawsuit it filed in 2020 against Apple at the same time it sued Google. Apple was required to make some changes to its App Store, and the company is still fighting with Epic about the scope of those reforms.
Ninth Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest pushed back on Google. “There are definitely some clear factual differences between the Android world and the Apple world, and your arguments sort of brush that idea aside,” Forrest said.
Ellsworth also told the appeals court that a jury should never have heard Epic’s lawsuit because it sought to enjoin Google’s conduct, not collect damages.
Epic’s attorney Gary Bornstein asked the appeals court to reject Google’s arguments, telling the judges that the Android app market has been “suffering under anti-competitive behavior for the better part of a decade.”
Bornstein defended Donato’s injunction, forcing Google to make changes to its Play Store. He disputed Google’s statement that the changes would harm user privacy and security.
Microsoft filed a brief backing Epic, as did the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission.
The 9th Circuit could issue a ruling later in the year. Its decision can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
