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back to article Panda Security axes jobs, gets new chief exec

Spanish anti-virus firm Panda Security has announced plans to cut its workforce in response to a sustained drop in sales. Panda, which employs 1,000 worldwide as part of either its core business or in local franchises, plans to lay off 120 (or around 35 per cent) of its workforce at its headquarters in Bilbao. A further eight …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unfortunate Marketing

    I could just never disassociate this company in my head with the cheap and awful Panda Cola that we used to get in lunch packs on school trips. Along with "Capital Crisps" and other provisions based on accountancy requirements rather than nutritional value. There's a lesson there somewhere....

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    1. Tom 38
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Aaaw, you can't diss the awesome quality of Panda products like that.

      Pick two from 'cheap', 'fast', 'reliable', the saying goes. With our range of Happy Shopper servers, you can only pick one from 'cheap'.

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  2. jason 7
    FAIL

    Their own fault really.

    Them and other like em.

    Products not good enough, too expensive, too shouty and ambiguous in use.

    No wonder MS are cleaning up with MSE.

    We all used AVG five years ago but now its like installing a sulky shouting teenager in your laptop.

    Make your products more effective, cheaper, more singular in their approach (no mega range of security apps that all pretend to do stuff) and then make it shut the hell up unless something actually serious happens.

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    1. Captain Scarlet
      Reply Icon

      I agree but

      For me it was their continual spamming after trying out their web scanner.

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  3. John Sanders
    FAIL

    Panda Antivirus...

    One of those lovely products that make your IT life a bit more miserable.

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  4. Dan 55 Silver badge
    FAIL

    They could compete with other firms using the free consumer anti-virus to get the product out there and paid-for consumer/business anti-virus + extras model if they managed to market themselves overseas effectively but then Spanish companies have never quite managed to get the hang of international sales.

    However Panda have got no excuse as a) they know they can't afford to be dependent on their internal market otherwise they're dead as in Spain the IT sector runs on free/open source or pirated software and b) they're on a level playing field in exactly the same international market as their competitors.

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    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Well I can only assume that I was downvoted by someone who doesn't know how IT is in Spain.

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  5. DZ-Jay

    Panda Security axes Jobs???

    OMG! Is he dead?! I know OS X security has been in question latetly, but attacking Steve like that is a bit drastic.

    (sorry, I couldn't resist.)

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It was always their association with $cientology

    which kept me from their products.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They will blame it on the economy, but...

    Bad, short sighted yank-style management killed this bear.

    Ever since it was sold to investors, Panda has gone downhill. Their operations in the U.S. was particularly unstable, going through managers like a hot knife through butter. In 4 years, they had 5 managers; Each one doing his own round of massive layoffs and lining his pockets as he headed for the door. Similar stories can be found in their other subsidiaries.

    The Register is not doing their homework nor reading between the lines. Their chairman is listed as one "Jaime Bergel" from Gala Capital, who is one of their investors. Ever since the investors took over, it was run by finance guys, ex-CEO Santana being one of them (He was the guy who initially orchestrated the sellof of Panda to Investors in 2007, by the way). They are looking to recoup their investment and dump this dog either whole, or most likely piece by piece.

    What a shame, they could have been contenders.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I used Panda for a bit, but found the yearly renewal process completely unusable and insulting, so gave up to use someone who was more happy to take my money

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  9. Surfer

    Panda the company sucks

    I left Panda many years ago after being a customer for about 5 yrs.

    I left them because of there stupid policy of not offering me a free upgrade for a like for like product, when they basically changed the name of Panda Platinum Internet Security to something else and wanted another £50 from me for the "new" version of my program!

    And to be honest they were going downhill then anyway, stopping the free telephone tech support for an email based only tech support.

    Ill never buy Panda again!

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Invisible hand

    Tried the free Panda cloud offering and found it was not so keen to pick up malware that others found. Perhaps the product speaks for itself. Market forces m8t!

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  11. JPQ
    Thumb Down

    Boo hoo!

    I hope this spanish galeon of ineptitude sinks. They false positived one of our programs and caused a large chunk of lost sales. After many calls, we were finally offered a solution that would cost us money. Blackmail much?

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  12. BJB

    One step ahead

    I agree that maybe Panda had bad sales strategy but please don't neglect the technology which this company introduced, like: Rinstallation, Truprevent, Collective Intelligence ....

    If we want to be fair, we should construe this company as best research department and sucks sales department. about support Dept. they have some dissatisfied customers like ( see above comments ) which could be some unscrupulous competitors.

    I, As a Cloud Antivirus user, hope that Pandasecurity can overcome its recent problems and experience the dignity and elegance of years ago.

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  13. Marty-SNGC
    Happy

    Mañana Looking Good for Panda UK

    It appears this is only a Spanish cut back, Panda UK is positive - http://www.itpro.co.uk/636376/panda-security-slashes-jobs-amidst-spanish-turmoil

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