More on Q4 Conference Call

Unless I've read this wrong, it seems we took a $349 million hit in the fourth quarter to save $200 million in 2009. If I understand this correctly, it doesn't make sense.

Without that hit, our profit would have been $350 million for the quarter instead of $1 million. Now that's a story that the "Market" would probably have loved. Maybe the stock price would have gone up, instead of down.

Did anyone consider investing say $10 million to start transition teams for our people? With their deep knowledge and dedication to the company I have to believe there are 100's of potential entrepreneurial possibilities.

Setting up school based education programs or small businesses or mentoring new employees organized into transition teams are just a few top of the mind approaches. If the ideas of these employees were tapped I'm sure new and exciting ways to use our strengths would have emerged.

It seems a waste of valuable social capital. There should be a way to fix this.

Note to Investor Relations: Any chance we could do what Google does?
http://investor.google.com/earnings.html

read at Financial Post

"NEW YORK -- Xerox Corp said on Friday it barely eked out a profit in the fourth quarter due to weak sales and US$349-million in restructuring costs, and it forecast first-quarter results below analysts' targets.

The leading provider of digital printers and document management services, whose growth is driven by sales of services and supplies for printing machines, said fourth-quarter net income was US$1-million, or nil per share, down from US$382-million, or 41 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items, including litigation charges, profit was 32 cents a share, a penny below the average Wall Street forecast, according to Reuters Estimates.

Late last year Xerox (XRX/NYSE) announced a restructuring plan that included about 3,000 job cuts, aimed at saving US$200-million in 2009. In the fourth quarter, restructuring charges were 27 cents a share."