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Bleak times for C&W workforce
From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Tuesday 29th Oct 2002.
THE 150 strong workforce at Cable & Wireless Global's £100 million web posting centre in Swindon are about to discover their fate.
The company is considering the future of its global data involvement at a board meeting this week in light of continuing losses.
The division was set up two years ago, as the web hosting operation was moved from London to the former Galileo IT centre on the Windmill Hill business park at Blagrove.
At the time, internet communication was booming and like many other telecom companies, C&W invested huge sums in what appeared to be a never ending expand-ing market.
Then, within six months, the worldwide downturn in the telecommunications industry changed things.
Now, according to reports, C&W could reduce its IT operations and even sell its global data operation to concentrate on areas likely to reach break-even targets.
However, C&W spokes-man, David Thain, said: "We have said for some time that our review of operations is ongoing and we will update the market when we announce interim results on November 13."
Chief executive, Graham Wallace, has said that C&W Global would reach cash-flow break-even by March 2004, however a dramatic drop in sales were making these goals hard to achieve.
The Swindon operation was transformed into one of Britain's biggest web hosting operations a plant contain-ing machinery that holds companies' internet site data.
It links up C&W's powerful global fibre optic cable network allowing much faster downloading times for people browsing sites.
The company moved from sites at Brentford and Lon-don's Docklands.
When the Swindon operation opened, it was considered to be crucial if e-commerce was to move forward and become an everyday facility.
A C&W spokeswoman said at the time: "The take up of people using the net has been so huge over the past two years, with expansion in this area set accelerate at least three-fold over the next five years.
"This will mean that Swindon is the gateway to net traffic to Europe and the world.
"The importance in terms of focus of attention on the town from all parts of the globe cannot be underestimated."
Now the future rather less promising.
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