Storage Technology Inc says it won’t make first quarter earnings expectations, and announced plans to cut 6% of its workforce, around 500 workers. It said production problems with its 9840 tape drives and slower than anticipated sales of its virtual storage management products were to blame. A charge of up to $25m will be taken in the second quarter for the layoffs. The company now expects earnings to be between five and ten cents per share, rather than the 42 cents a share expected by First Call. Last year the company made profits of $40.6m in the first quarter, on revenues of $484.9m.
