Dell Closes Edmonton Call Centre
Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) today has announced that they are closing their Edmonton call centre, effectively putting 1,200 Edmontonians out of a job. This was further confirmed today by the Edmonton Economic Development Corp, which stated that it had been told the call centre located in the Edmonton Research Park will be closing permanently sometime between May and the end of July.
This is the second closure announcement in a week for the 2nd largest PC builder. It was only Tuesday that Dell announced that they were cancelling a 1,200 employee expansion to their Ottawa location and reducing the current workforce of 1,500 by an unspecified number.
The two Canadian call centres were originally opened in an effort to curtail problems with overseas customer service, product issues, and declining profit margins due to intense competition. During a tour of the Edmonton location in late 2006, Michael Dell was even asked by The Edmonton Journal if Canadian labour could compete against overseas workers.
“The reason we are here in Edmonton and in Ottawa is because we need skills…What’s important to us is that our customers get the best experience from anywhere in the world. We found that support teams here have a better track record of helping the customer,” Dell said. This is in contrast to the statement released today with the closure announcement.
“Differentiating Dell through superior service and support remains one of the company’s primary strategic priorities and we appreciate the role our talented Edmonton team has played in this effort,” said Dave Vanden Bosch, Dell’s Edmonton site leader.
Employees affected by the closure are being offered other jobs at the company, or severance packages and career placement services. The jobs being lost in the closure will be moved to other locations.
For more information, check out the Edmonton Sun article.
The 2nd Annual Sony Poker Party - CES 2008
Sony Online Entertainment is one business unit within the Sony Corporation that knows a good idea when it has one, at least when it comes to throwing Press/VIP parties at CES. Last year they threw the first poker party, and some of the other Sony business units were there to boost the launch of the PS3 and some of their newest HDTV sets. The prizes were big, and the party was rather drawn out. Sony gave out too many chips, which made last year’s poker tournament go until 3:00AM. This was rather enjoyable for everyone…except the folks from Sony, who undoubtedly had to be up early the next day to tend to their CES booths.
With lessons learned from last year (make the tournament close-ended, hold it at a better venue) Sony sent out invitations for their 2nd annual poker party. The theme was to be pirates, to boost their new MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea. It was held at The Joint nightclub at the Hard Rock Hotel. I was of course invited, as was pretty well everyone else from the TTZ crew. We also managed to convince the man himself, Fatal1ty, to attend the festivities. Would his god like abilities in the FPS arena translate into some luck at the poker table? Well with the blinds adjusted, an ante implemented, and a timer being used, it wouldn’t take us long to find out. Sony definitely wanted us to have fun this year, but not until 3:00AM. (Read on …)
Klipsch Chopper from OCC at CES 2008
The Klipsch party at Body English seemed like it was going to be just another press and VIP party. That was until I found out that the guys from Orange County Choppers were unveiling a Klipsch themed chopper. So while all the webmasters headed to Phantom of the Opera, all the 20-somethings from FutureLooks.com and TheTechZone.com headed to the Hard Rock Hotel to party hard and see a wicked chopper revealed. I somehow managed to muscle my way right up to the stage to see the cover come off, so here’s the video of the bike being unveiled front and centre.
I also took quite a few pictures at the party, as well as some of the memorabilia found at the Hard Rock Hotel. Check out the pictures in the gallery after the jump. (Read on …)
Bring Back COMDEX!
It’s taken a week, but I’ve finally recovered from my trip to the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In that week, while laid out on my couch I had an epiphany. I have now attended CES twice, and as a technology journalist I don’t like it. There are three main reasons for my shortly learned dislike of the event. The first and biggest reason is the sheer size of CES. The event is absolutely huge, due to its focus on far too many disconnected areas of the consumer electronics industry. The second reason is related to the first; there’s a huge amount of people at the event. Conventions like this do attract many people, but CES itself attracts people from what are once again very disconnected areas of the consumer electronics industry. Thirdly, there’s the large amount of expense that goes into attending the event. Everyone in Vegas is out to make $1, unless it’s CES week. Then they want to make $3. This doesn’t deter every Tom, Dick, and blogger from attending CES though. From Bob’s Miscellaneous Tech Blog straight up to the ivory towers of the New York Times, CES has no lack of coverage of every aspect of the event. Now I do like Vegas. The chance to visit the family, as well as touch base with my many contacts in person, is a welcome opportunity. But I’m left wondering, can’t we just bring back COMDEX, and have a North American show focused squarely on computing and IT? (Read on …)
UNLV and TigerDirect Encourage Charity
Well, the latter encourages charity. The former simply knows how to encourage it. Here’s a quick video from the TigerDirect Build Your Own PC Race for Charity event, one the many parties and events I’ve attended at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. The event name is pretty self explanatory; participants build a mid-range computer to be donated to a charity of their choice. Participants are timed, with 1st place being awarded an additional $10,000 USD to donate. This year, due to overwhelming interest in the event they were also able to award the person in 2nd place an additional $2500 USD to give to the charity of their choice. But before the race could begin, we we’re treated to a performance by the cheerleading sqaud from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Now the year prior, the winner was declared within 7 minutes. This year took far longer than that, and far longer than any build off in the history of the event. After 10 minutes and 10 seconds a winner emerged. (Read on …)
Next Page »