Pivot3 Layoffs Confirmed As Coronavirus Forces ‘Structural Changes’

‘We’re seeing our customers’ timelines slip and decisions get suspended as everyone evaluates the impact of this slowdown on their own businesses,’ says Pivot3’s CMO Bruce Milne.

The coronavirus pandemic is causing Pivot3 customers to suspend business decisions and is putting some “extraordinary strains” on the company which is causing layoffs at the hyperconverged infrastructure and video surveillance specialist, the company confirmed to CRN.

“In a situation like this, the responsible approach is to make some strategic and structural changes to our business to preserve resources and to ensure our continued ability to support our customers, who in many cases depend on us for mission-critical deployments,” said Bruce Milne, Pivot3’s vice president and chief marketing officer in a statement to CRN. “We are adjusting the size of our team and staying focused on our core mission. We have preserved all key operational aspects of our business so that we can continue to market, sell, service and support customer solutions.”

Pivot3 declined to say how many total employees were being let go. The Austin, Texas-based company, which made CRN’s 2020 Data Center 50, lists approximately 250 employees on LinkedIn with offices in Austin, Houston, Colorado, Dubai, Mexico City as well as offices in the U.K. and Asia-Pacific.

[Related: Coronavirus ‘Uncertainty’: Dell, VMware Pull Financial Guidance]

Milne said the coronavirus has greatly strained Pivot3 and the IT market in general.

“This market environment has put some extraordinary strains on the economy and on businesses of all sizes. Pivot3 is no exception; we’re seeing our customers’ timelines slip and decisions get suspended as everyone evaluates the impact of this slowdown on their own businesses,” said Milne. “We also don’t have any clear insight as to how long this will last. While we can be hopeful that it’s short lived, we don’t have that certainty.”

Pivot3 has over 2,600 customers in 66 countries with deployed solutions in the healthcare, government, transportation, security, entertainment, education, gaming and retail markets, to name a few. The company, who also made Gartner’s 2019 Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructure, is backed by private equity investors including S3 Ventures and Argonaut Private Equity.

The company dubs its Acuity hyperconverged offering as the only solution with an intelligence engine that eliminates resources contention, automates data and workload mobility, prioritizes resources to critical workloads and lets customers consolidate them onto one infrastructure. Last year, Pivot3’s longtime CEO Ron Nash departed the company after 15 years with its former chief financial officer, Bill Stover, taking over the reins in July.

In regard to Pivot3’s layoffs, Milne told CRN that the company will “remain committed to timely delivery and exceptional support” for its customers and partners.

“This health crisis has created some uncharted waters for us all to navigate,” said Milne. “We’re confident that the changes we’ve made will allow us to weather the storm and emerge stronger on the other side.”

Earlier this month, market research firm IDC cut its IT spending forecast for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The research firm now predicts only 1 percent growth in IT spending this year, compared with its original expectation in January of 5 percent growth year over year.