Amazon axes Halo gear as job cuts hit cloud segment

Amazon is in cost-cutting mode in both its retail and cloud arm, with layoff memos surfacing in HR and AWS, and the company ditching Halo fitness gear as the Book Depository subsidiary closes its covers for good. The layoffs are part of 18,000 jobs cuts that Amazon confirmed in January, which together with the 9,000 …

[An_Old_Dog]

Halo Gear

I was surprised to read about "Halo Gear" in your article, and wondered what sort of things they would be ... until I saw the photo and realized you were writing about a different Halo (a health something-or-other) than the Bungie/Now-Microsoft computer game.

No Master Sergeant armor on offer, then...

[Panicnow]

Let the management buy-out the "failures"

Corporates buying them axing seem wasteful. Usually, these businesses are viable, just use too much senior management time in relation to their up-side.

I wonder if these businesses were offered to the original owners?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Let the management buy-out the "failures"

Not very environmentally friendly bricking all those devices at a stroke without updating them to work on their own not needing the cloud.

[Doctor Syntax]

So they're stopping supporting an app that relies on a remote server. It's just as well Amazon doesn't offer such remote services elsewhere, otherwise it might cause customers of such products to worry that they might be next.

[JimboSmith]

So they're stopping supporting an app that relies on a remote server. It's just as well Amazon doesn't offer such remote services elsewhere, otherwise it might cause customers of such products to worry that they might be next.

This is one of the reasons I try not to use tech that relies solely on the cloud or an internet service and can’t function as a stand alone item. There are too many examples of this which have graced the pages of this venerable website. Like the bloke who despite my requirements being clearly explained, tried to sell me cameras that connected to and/or relied on a cloud service. I had expressed a desire to have the camera on a closed loop system. When I said I wasn’t interested and he asked why not I said to avoid support ending and bricking the camera.

[VBF]

Absolutely!!!

Couldn't agree more!

In addition to what you said, I never store anything just on "the cloud". I always have disk backups. They may not be immediately accessible, but I know they're there!

[Peter-Waterman1]

Results are out today

Yesterdays News - Amazon sacks 9,000 staff, mainly from AWS

Today's News - Amazon Results are out

Revenues grew 9 per cent to $127.4bn

Revenue at Amazon Web Services, its cloud unit, grew 16 per cent to $21.4bn in the quarter.

Andy Jassy, Amazon chief executive, said “We like the fundamentals we’re seeing in AWS, and believe there’s much growth ahead.”

Kind of speaks for itself.

[ecofeco]

Re: Results are out today

It all goes back to this:

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-01-30/column-how-big-tech-is-using-mass-layoffs-to-bring-workers-to-heel

[I miss PL/1]

Re: Results are out today

Now those 27000 have been freed from a soul sucking job that will crush your spirit. Good for them. They have a chance to be much happier now at a job that doesn't crush you into the dirt.

[Electric Panda]

No doubt they'll be laying off HR, Marketing, Product/Project Managers... while re-hiring a very similar number of "engineers" and purely technical people "to support our customers and their journey of growth at pace" or other similar corporate burp.

Usually how it works. Meanwhile, I know someone who works in security at AWS and he's on track to have cleared his mortgage by 40.