Palm to Close Most of Its Retail Stores
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Losing sales to BlackBerrys and iPhones, the smartphone maker said it will close seven of its eight retail stores in February.
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BOSTON  Â Talbots will close its 78 childrenâs and menâs apparel stores to focus on its core middle-age female customer, the company said Friday.
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U.S. retailer Macy's Inc said on Friday it would close nine underperforming stores in Indiana, Ohio, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Texas.
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Ailing supermarket chain Kwik Save announces it is to close more than a third of its stores immediately.
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U.S. retailers will close stores and  reduce square-footage growth plans this year to offset slowing  sales, slumping stock prices, a saturated market and a penny  conscious shopper, analysts said on Sunday.
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Sony Corp. will begin shuttering its  Connect Music Store in March, the company confirmed Thursday.
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The UK's largest brewer announces it is closing its operation in Berkshire putting 362 jobs there at risk.
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Photographic retailer Jessops says it plans to close 81 of its High Street stores and cut 550 jobs.
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Barnes &#038; Noble intends to close its store on Astor Place, which has been open since 1994, at the end of the year.
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Bankrupt toy seller KB Toys Inc. said  on Tuesday it plans to close 141 to 238 underperforming stores  by the end of January as part of its reorganization effort.
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Sharp Electronics plans to stop selling its Linux-based personal digital assistant (PDA) in the US, reports Associated Press. The company will continue to
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Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises said Friday it will close five Saks Fifth Avenue stores in California. In all, the company will close eight stores and one Off 5th nationwide.
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(InfoWorld) - Struggling handheld device maker Palm has been hit with layoffs. The layoffs, which occurred Thursday, affected "a small percentage" of Palm's approximately 1,200 employees and were concentrated in the company's development group, according to a company spokesman. They primarily affect Palm employees in the U.S., he added. Palm has seen steady decline in the handheld device market, where it leads the market and is in the midst of financial restructuring. Last week,Â private equity investors Elevation Partners took a 25 percent stake in Palm, investing $325 million into the struggling smartphone maker. The company faces stiff competition in the growing smartphone market, where its Treo line has been a hit. Also, its latest hardware release, theÂ Foleo 'smartphone companion,'Â has garned only a lukewarm response thus far. The Palm spokesman said that the reorganization was in the works prior to the Elevation investment and that the company is still hiring staff in other areas. "We're flattening our organizational hierarchy and doing some realignment," he said. He would not say exactly how many employees were being laid off.
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NEW YORK CITY - Colgate-Palmolive Co. announced its plans on Tuesday to axe about 4,400 jobs and close one third of its 78 plants worldwide.
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(InfoWorld) - BenQ Mobile is closing down a handset facility in Taiwan amid an ongoing restructuring of its operations, calling reported plans to outsource production altogether "speculation." The closure of the facility is part of aÂ massive restructuring effortÂ parent company BenQ announced last month, after it failed to make good on a promise to turn around its financial performance in the second quarter. The company's mobile phone business has struggled ever since itÂ took over Siemens' loss-making mobile phone divisionÂ in a high profile deal last year. It also highlights cutthroat competition in the mobile phone industry as leaders such as Nokia and MotorolaÂ grab market share. The handset business had proved so tough for Siemens that it agreed to pay BenQ â¬250 million ($317 million) to take the ailing division off its hands. BenQ has posted losses for the three quarters that have passed since the deal was finalized. The Taiwanese handset facility will close by the end of this year, affecting over 100 workers. Foreign workers invited to Taiwan to work the factory floor will be sent home, while some Taiwanese workers will retire and others will be relocated to other BenQ factories, said Albert Lin, a communications officer at BenQ. The operation accounts for less than 10 percent of BenQ Mobile's handset production. "This is part of BenQ Mobile's plan to cut costs and increase efficiency," he said. He also called news reports from Germany, which say BenQ Mobile plans to sell or close all of its handset factories and farm production out to a contract manufacturer, "speculation," and refused further comment. It's the second series of layoffs announced by the mobile phone maker so far this year. In July, BenQ Mobile said it planned to cut 277 jobs at its facility in Munich, Germany, in addition to releasing 250 German contract employees that work offsite. BenQ Mobile's parent company, BenQ Corp., also said it planned to restructure its operations in an effort to increase cash available to finance BenQ Mobile as it struggles toward profitability. BenQ last month said it would split its name brand division and manufacturing operations into separate companies, a change that would not affect its mobile phone factories. BenQ Mobile planned to continue producing its own handsets due to the degree of customization required by network operators, among other reasons, Clemens Joos, CEO of BenQ Mobile, said at the time. BenQ Mobile faces an uphill battle to return to profitability, mainly because larger rivals have stepped up the competition and are grabbing market share from smaller companies in the industry. BenQ's share of the handset market dropped to 3.2 percent in the second quarter, from 4.8 percent the same time last year, according to market researcher Gartner. Meanwhile, Nokia's share rose to 33.6 percent from 31.6 percent, and Motorola's increased to 21.9 percent from 17.7 percent. Â
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The Saks Fifth Avenue store in the Carmel Plaza in Carmel is being closed as the upscale fashion retailer adjusts its portfolio. It&#39;s one of eight Saks stores and three Off 5th stores being shut down by Saks
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Handheld maker says it will close down its Palm.Net wireless e-mail and Web service soon.