At a technology conference last week, Schmidt was bullish about the company's prospects, promising that the company could apply the "Google magic" to the banner-ad business, just like it did with search advertising.

At Silicon Alley Insider, Henry Blodget hears differently. His sources tell him that search revenues are down "markedly" over the past month.

That squares with a rumor we heard from inside the Googleplex: That security is prepping for a round of "white badge" layoffs.

What are "white badges?" The supposedly unhierarchical Google has a system of badges: red badges for contractors, white badges for regular employees. Like the red-shirted crew who served as cannon fodder on Star Trek, red-badged contractors have taken the first hit, with Google laying off thousands since September. Save for a hundred recruiters laid off in January, the white badges have been left mostly unscathed.

Our tipster tells us:

I hear there will be more layoffs of "white badges" (a security guard told me). The next round will be big. It should be announced around the 9th — right in time for the close of the first quarter.

The 9th is today, and we haven't heard anything yet about layoffs, so our tipster may be wrong on the timing; the quarter has three weeks left in it, after all. But if Blodget is right about Google's revenues, our tipster may be correct. A Google spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

On Charlie Rose last week, Schmidt, asked if Google would buy Twitter, said that he was unlikely to buy anything, "partly because I think prices are still high." Ah, "partly." Could Google's cratering business fill in the rest of his unspoken reluctance? The clip:

"That's business," said Balek when Valleywag reached him by phone.

The reason for the closure: Google is subleasing an entire complex of offices. It has already laid off thousands of contractors, so it no longer needs the space. How sudden is this move? Basic Deli, which won raves from San Francisco Chronicle food critic Michael Bauer, had only been open a year. 5ive, the cafe where Googlers are eating in the clip above, has also proved popular.

The company already closed Off the Grid, one of the complex's three cafés which offer free food for Google workers, last October. Plymouth and Oasis, two cafés on the edge of Google's main campus, may be next, a source says.

Balek, a colorful chef who has the words "foie gras" tattooed on his knuckles, confirmed his café's closure. He's moving to another café on the Googleplex, and says that all of the kitchen staff — contract workers employed by Bon Appétit — have been placed.

That will be news to them: We hear that none of the Basic staff have yet learned whether they'll have jobs on Monday. They were promised word two days ago.

"That's a vendor issue," Balek explained before hurrying back to his kitchen.

The chef is being highly diplomatic here. Google has long sparred with Bon Appétit, squeezing the café operator to keep dishing up organic expensive fare at rock-bottom prices. The result of the infighting: Steady cutbacks on meals and hours served, culminating in this weeks' outright closure of cafés. A scandal forced out John Dickman, head of Google's food operations. (He landed briefly at Apple afterwards, but reportedly left in January.) Googlers, meanwhile, have treated the company's cooks, servers and dishwashers with the kind of dismissive disdain they usually reserve for media executives.

Under a new, well-paid CFO, Google is focusing intensely on costs. Patrick Pichette, Google's penny-pincher in chief, is preserving Google's profit margins. But at what cost to the culture? Free food is the legendary perk around which Google has built its reputation for treating employees well. You can't cut your cake and have it, too.

That's not a "major" layoff, as one Valleywag tipster maintained this morning. As Eric Savitz points out in Tech Trader Daily, Apple would have to file through the WARN Act if it was going to conduct major cuts. But the WARN Act does not generally apply to layoffs of fewer than 500 employees.

Perhaps the cuts felt major to workers within Apple's unloved enterprise group. Why is that division getting the business end of cutbacks? The least sexy part of Apple, selling servers and other products to corporate customers, has never gotten much attention inside or outside the company. Steve Jobs has never particularly cared about business customers — in fact, he once ridiculed them as lemmings in an '80s-era Apple ad (see clip above). Even though he's ostensibly on medical leave, the cuts in Apple's enterprise sales are a pretty good sign he still has his hand on the tiller.

Update: An Apple spokesman has denied the layoffs.

A tipster reports:

Smoot-Hawley it ain't — but, google's just implemented its own horrid "buy american" policy without fanfare. Specifically: the BEERS at the company's famed "tgif" event on late fri afternoons — once a delightful array of Pilsner, Heineken, Beck's and Carlsberg Elephants — have morphed into a sad pick of Bud, Miller, Coors. Nothing was announced: it just happened! A cost-cutting move? Maybe: any googler with a taste for real beer will happily turn to tap water (since the company's discontinued bottled water too, in an obvious cost-saving moved disguised as ecological conscience;-) rather than imbibe such swill, so the sad excuses for bottles can be paraded again the following week for no money down. No idea what's happening at international location — hopefully googlers in dublin or zurich can still enjoy beers worth that name, even while their US colleagues are forced to penance via the sad array of domestic brands:-(

In an ongoing austerity campaign, Google has already hiked prices for childcare, cut in-house tech support, and Christmas bonuses. At any other workplace, these perk slashes would be expected as the economy contracts. At Google? It's proof that the world's most magical employer has become, well, just another company.

Heard of more stupid cost-cutting tricks? Drop us a line.

(Photo by haynes)

For almost five years now, Google has a sprawling network of shuttles that ferry workers from San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area to their Mountain View, Calif. headquarters — thus sparing its employees the indignity of living in the dreary, decidedly unhip office park sprawl of Silicon Valley. Some 1,200 people ride the shuttles each day. After the company's famous free cafeterias, the shuttle is one of Google's most visible perks.

But it could be taken away so easily. Contractors pay $15 a week, and since Googlers have to swipe their ID cards to board the bus, it would be easy for the company to start charging employees and interns the same rate, or more. (A ride on public transportation costs about three times as much and takes nearly twice as long, because of Google's environmentally unfriendly location across a highway from local transit links.)

The buses have Wi-Fi and run on biodiesel, a less polluting alternative to regular gas. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have become environmental crusaders, spending shareholder money on renewable energy efforts, which might have some salutary impact on Google's electricity bills, but seem far afield from its core business of Web search.

A Google spokesman, asked for a statement, offered no comment on the record. It would strain credulity for Google to start charging. The cost-cutting symbolism would pale compared to the negative environmental impact of sending green-thinking Googlers back into their cars — not to mention the PR hit the company would take.

But it's notable that Googlers, who are generally smart and aware of the precarious state of the economy, are gossiping about the notion of losing such a beloved perk as their free ride to work. And it's telling, too, that Google wouldn't just come out and deny the rumor. That fact alone suggests it's in the realm of possibility.

(Photo by jyri)

Susan Wojcicki, the millionaire sister-in-law of Brin who also holds a management role in the company, announced the job cuts in a blog post, as she laid out plans for Google to exit the business of brokering radio ads, a business it entered in 2006 when it bought dMarc Broadcasting for $102 million.

Up to 40 Googlers will lose their jobs, a small percentage of the 20,000 remaining employees at the search giant. But the real cut here is to google's ambitions.

dMarc was Google's first big move outside online advertising. It followed swiftly with announcements of forays into selling ads in newspapers, magazines, and TV. The strategy had more to do with Wall Street than with Madison Avenue, though: Google desperately needed to create the illusion for shareholders that it could tap more than just the market for Internet search ads.

Google has already pulled out of print advertising. Now radio is gone. Will TV advertising be next? Wojcicki, in her blog post, insisted that Google would keep trying to break into the TV business. The rationale: Like the clicks that give Google feedback on which ads work and which ones don't, Google can track when TV viewers change channels in the middle of a TV ad.

The feedback loop of clickstream data has made Google victorious online. The more ads it sells, the more data it has; the more data it has, the more accurate its targeting is; and the more accurate its targeting, the more money it makes for advertisers and publishers, drawing yet more ads. Microsoft and Yahoo, with a smaller base of advertisers and users, never stood a chance.

That dynamic simply doesn't exist with radio or print advertising. And the channel-switching data Google touts simply is not informative enough to shape TV-advertising campaigns.

Napoleon's rout in Russia, far from home, was followed in a few short years by defeat just outside the borders of France in Waterloo. His army was still mighty after Moscow. It was the long, cold march back home that devastated it. Could Larry and Sergey's hubris lead them to a similar defeat?

I'm a Cisco employee, and at the company meeting going on right now, Frank Calderoni, CFO, just announced that as part of our expense reduction plans, they're going to get rid of the free drinks in breakrooms, replacing them with vending machines. He said it'll save like $12-13 million. A few slides later, the head of HR was bragging about Cisco being ranked the 6th best place to work by Fortune. I don't think they realized the logical disconnect.

Add this to Cisco's recently announced pay-to-play gym, and you wonder if Calderoni, Cisco's bean-counter-in-chief, isn't trying to turn employees into a profit center. Another in our series of corporate America's stupid cost-cutting tricks! Has your employer pinched pennies for no purpose? Send us your tales of perks and jerks.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has previously said he wouldn't help out by buying newspapers or showering them with cash. Google Print wasn't a bailout; it was an attempt to do business together. In a blog post, Google Print Ads director Spencer Spinnell says that his employer will keep working with newspapers — as long as they realize that they'll have to make money on the Internet, not in print (emphasis added):

We remain dedicated to working with publishers to develop new ways for them to earn money, distribute and aggregate content and attract new readers online. We will continue to devote a team of people to look at how we can help newspaper companies.

Oh, but not just any cell phone: A version of the G1 currently sold for $179.99 by T-Mobile, which runs Google's Android operating system. Android is the fruit of Google founders' Larry Page and Sergey Brin's strange obsession with the wireless market, launched in a fit of jealousy over the growing number of phones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile. (Imagine that: Google, jealous of Microsoft for a change.)

In an email, Google management blames the economic crisis and suggests that this is a great opportunity to "dogfood" the phones — an unappetizing tech-industry euphemism for testing products in-house. This is what has become of the company that was once deemed the best place in the world to work: Cancelled bonuses and unpaid labor. Here's the memo:

Googlers,

The holiday bonus is a Google tradition - it's a great way to thank everyone for their hard work. In the past, we've done this in cash. This year, we've decided to give Googlers a different kind of present - a Dream phone (this is the same device T-Mobile markets as the G1). We're really excited about getting the phone to more Googlers in more countries, and also seeing all the cool new things you do with it.

Shipping these special edition phones in such a short time frame (they were designed especially for Googlers with a 'droid' on the back) and making sure they would work anywhere in the world was no small feat. So a big thank you to the Android and Legal teams for making this happen. While these phones do not have SIM cards, they are unlocked so they can be used with the network provider of your choice. Plus - thanks to more fancy footwork from the Android team - they'll work immediately as WiFi devices!

Sadly, despite all our best efforts, there are some countries - India, China, Brazil, Korea, Israel, Russia, Argentina, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mexico, Turkey, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Egypt, Chile, and the Ukraine - where even our legal team could not work their magic. Googlers in these countries will receive the cash equivalent of the phone in their December paychecks, which is about $400 USD. Overall though almost 85% of Googlers globally will be able to receive the phone - including the United States, Western and Central Europe, Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Japan.

The holiday gift team in your office will be sending out an email with logistical information on distribution shortly. We know that some of you are already on your holidays - don't worry - your phones will be waiting for you when you come back! For more information, check out the FAQ here.

Some of you will of course be wondering why we decided to change from a cash bonus to the Dream phone. Here are the reasons. First, we've never developed anything like the Android software before and this represented a unique opportunity to celebrate that achievement. Googlers globally have been asking for the Dream phone and we're looking forward to seeing all the different things that you do with them. This is a chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better! Second, as we discussed in our email this week, the current economic crisis requires us to be more conservative about how we spend our money. We felt that giving the Dream phone would be a great holiday present - something we could all celebrate.

Thank you for all that you do to make Google the company that it is. We hope that you will enjoy using your Dream phone in 2009 and have a very happy holiday!

One tipster notes:

The boxes appear to have magnets to keep them closed, instead of tape — open box discount for Google?

Since the phones are customized for Googlers, the suggestion that these are leftover G1s which went unsold at retail is unlikely. Can you get your hands on one? It will take some bravery to put them up for sale on eBay, magnets or not. But hey, times are tough all over. Even at the Googleplex.

The Los Angeles Times carried a report about lost perks in Santa Monica, the home of the Yahoo Media Group: no more reserved parking for executives; no more fruit, bagels, and muffins; no more coffee cards (just brew-your-own Starbucks). But the best part wasn't the new cutbacks; it was the old dish on Braun's supposed excesses.

Never mind that most of the juicy gossip still told about Braun — an umbrella stolen from the employee store! a request for a corporate jet, turned down! a lavish office with its own patio — may not be true.

Braun, who joined Yahoo in 2004 with the express mission of bringing some Hollywood flair to its media operations, came to represent everything wrong about the company under ex-CEO Terry Semel. But the early parts of his career there were spent just organizing Yahoo's media properties, like Yahoo News, Finance, and Sports, into a single group. Along the way, he rapidly ran against resistance from the Silicon Valley's engineer-centric culture. When Valleywag launched in early 2006, Braun's departure seemed imminent; it ended up taking most of the year.

The infighting became legendary — like the time Yahoo's homepage producers, who then reported to rival executive Jeff Weiner, didn't bother to link to expansive Oscar coverage produced by Braun's group. Even Braun's facial tics became fodder for speculation.

So what was Braunism, this ideology that requires such ritual denouncements? Chiefly, it was the notion that Yahoo should become some kind of newfangled movie studio, producing original videos to distribute to its hundreds of millions of users. (One of Braun's ideas, really: a newscast with puppets. It was not greenlighted.) The production efforts proved expensive, and nothing Braun launched attracted a lasting audience. Meanwhile, Google was making a mint by merely indexing other people's content and hosting blogs and videos created by users.

But the strategy was Semel's as much as it was Braun's. So why do Yahoos pick on Braun? As a TV producer, he ended up as a recurring joke in Seinfeld, a show he oversaw. And his colorful malapropisms make him easy to caricature. He makes a good story. Which is why, even now, he comes up in stories about Yahoo mending its ways.

ChiChi212 attended one of the three, a party for engineers at Penthouse 15 on West 37th Street in midtown Manhattan. The scene: filet mignon, top-shelf liquor, and "tons of technies dancing to Soulja Boy," blogger Brittany Mendenhall writes. Another party is planned for engineers at the Westside Loft, and salespeople get a party at the Central Park Boathouse. Deborah Schoeneman estimated that this year's parties will cost half of 2007's bash at the Rainbow Room, which ran $300 a head.

CDO-Wide Expense Management Policies

1. Year-End PTO: As announced on CEC, Cisco U.S./Canada offices will shut down from December 29 - January 2 as part of the company’s expense management initiative.
· This mandate applies to the vast majority of CDO employees. Management will notify specific CDO teams that have customer-related exceptions during the year-end shutdown period including support for Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and Customer Assurance Program (CAP) teams.
· We also strongly encourage all employees to take additional time off from December 22nd through December 24th or by the end of Q2. Taking additional PTO beyond the four mandated days can significantly contribute to your business unit cost savings and provides a well-deserved break for you.

2. Holiday Activities: All CDO teams are encouraged to celebrate the holidays, but try to find creative ways that result in no cost to the company. There should be no Business Group, Technology Group or Business Unit-funded holiday parties.

3. Hiring: A number of new Cisco-wide hiring policies were announced this week. These policies are intended to ensure that movement of talent continues to take place in strategic areas to the company.
* On Monday, November 17th all open requisitions were cancelled; CDO requisitions can be reopened with Development Council member approval. [REDACTED NAME OF AN EMPLOYEE HERE]
* Replacement or backfill positions will be approved at the discretion of the Development Council Business Group lead based on revised budget affordability.
* College recruiting programs in the US, India and China are not subject to the above requirements. They will continue to maintain CDO's strategic relationships with designated universities and to provide access to candidates.

4. Travel: Travel is an area where CDO spends a significant amount each year and where all employees can make a significant impact. You should expect reductions in the following areas based on revised budget affordability:
* Support for tradeshows in accordance with revised Marketing requirements
* Travel required for participation in standards forums

5. Project-Related Costs: Outside services, equipment expense, capital purchases and prototypes are another large area of expense management focus in CDO. Specific spend allocation on each of these areas will be managed by the Business Group to fit within revised budgets.

6. Training: As a Development Council, we remain committed to the development of our employees, even during challenging economic times. To do so, in adherence with Cisco policy, we are requiring that all training take place locally. We also ask that all CDO-employees look for ways to maximize training budgets in the following ways:
* Revisit and reprioritize development plans with your manager before you sign up for training with an associated cost. This will save on potential cancellation fees later. Refer to the CDO website for more training guidelines and ways you can continue your development and save money.

For Cisco, even the cancellation is a sales opportunity; the company is pitching it as an example of the money-saving potential of its videoconferencing and teleworking products. Boring! Throwing money at salespeople is the best way to make them feel loved — just another sign that Cisco has no real understanding of what a human network really means. It also suggests CEO John Chambers's influence is waning at the company — since this is the kind of event at which his evangelical delivery shines.

I'm not a Valleywag regular but felt compelled to write after Blake & Sue's latest cost-cutting shenanigans.

After filling up my salad box as usual, I head over to the cashier to pay my usual 4.25, a fair price for a smallish-medium salad whose cost is supposedly company subsidised (that's what they told me when I joined a few months ago). Today, however, I had to put my take out box on a scale since Yahoo is charging by weight now. So my 4.25 salad cost me $7.75 (I was an idiot for using the dense ranch dressing). What an excellent way to further kill morale during such trying times at the company. Best of all, Management decided to keep this secret from employees! They could have mentioned it at the all hands but they're spineless bitches who couldn't even take the issue of the cafe head-on.

I never thought a management team could be so stupid to strip away these perks that increase productivity when there are many larger costs that can be cut first. After this, it wouldn't be surprising for them to stop offering coffee or charging for the water. Luckily they're not charging people to use the bathroom as the $.50/flush proposal got nixed at the last board meeting (although the proposal may be revisited at any time).

Anyway, I just needed to rant because I cannot believe a firm would be so stupid to cut back on perks that improve productivity while wasting money on shit like a Halloween party and a bunch of banners touting the greatness of Yahoo around the Sunnyvale campus (and the door props...gimme a break). Not to mention the killer haloween party. And chauferring Sue in from the North Bay each time she comes in. Gosh this place IS as bad as the stuff you read!

The integrated LifeConnections center provides our employees with a holistic model for health care delivery with a full range of options. Studies show that by bringing together health care, fitness, and child care in one location, this results in greater employee life balance through less time away from work and reduced need to drive to other service locations, as well as a positive return on investment for Cisco."

The current fitness centers located in Buildings SJ-6 and SJ-L will end operations on October 31.

For information about the current fitness centers in SJ-L and SJ-6, please see http://wwwin.cisco.com/wpr/fitness/sj/

The new Life Connections Fitness Center, Building SJ-Q at 3571 North First Street, will open on November 4 at 4:30pm.

LifeConnections Fitness Center hours will be the same as our current fitness centers; Mon-Thu - (5:30am-9pm), Fri - (5:30am-8pm).

Members are encouraged to sneak a peak of the new facility and beat the rush on pre-registering - Monday, October 27 - Wednesday, October 29 from 10am-4pm.

Membership dues for the new Fitness Center will be $20 per month for employees, $30 per month for contractors or $2 per day for badged guests. more...

Cisco is subsidizing 90% of the cost for these improvements, sharing only 10% with employees.

Regular Cisco Employees can receive the first three months of membership for free by taking the Health Connections Personal Health Assessment by November 30.

You are invited to a grand opening event November 3

All are encouraged to attend the grand opening event on Monday, November 3 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Building SJ-Q.

Good. Cut down on those damn kitchen hours so those Google bastards don't clog the elevators ALL DAY every day going between the eighth floor (where the lunchroom is) to their offices on 4, 6, and 10.

You can't get out of this damn building some days!