Friday, Sun Microsystems Incorporated announced that they would be cutting their global work force by 18 percent, which translates as 6,000 people being scheduled to be laid off from the company. The measure comes as a last resort to keep the business afloat, given that sales of Sun’s high-end servers have already sunk to a lower than ever level, while their shares on the market have decreased by 2.2 percent (9 cents) to $3.99 on Friday.

The maker of high powered server computers has been struggling for years as its enterprise clients switch to cheaper alternatives based on Microsoft Windows and open-source Linux systems.

According to Sun Microsystems officials, the job cuts would affect from 5,000 to 6,000 employees, being set to come into effect during the following year.

The company has estimated that cutting the work force by approximately 18 percent would render them to save $700 million to $800 million annually, while the costs for severance and restructuring are expected to amount to $600 million over the year to come.

Sun's chief executive Jonathan Schwartz has stated that the cut-offs were a necessary measure, since the economic crisis the United States are trying to cope with had rendered many people incapable of getting loans to pay for high-end servers, this latter business segment being responsible for a quarter of the company’s profit.

During the fiscal quarter that ended on September 28, Sun Microsystems registered a loss of $1.68 billion, while their shares have severely plummeted, so that at the moment, the company’s market value is below Sun’s cash on hand. On Thursday, when the market closed, Sun’s shares were at $4.08, whereas the company’s market value amounted to $3.01 billion.

Sun is the third major Silicon Valley company announce job cuts this week after Applied Materials Inc., the largest maker of chip-production machinery, announced plans to cut 1,800 jobs, and mobile-phone chip builder National Semiconductor Corp. said it will shed about 5 percent of the staff.

"We're taking sharp, decisive action to align ourselves to a new economic reality, and also to amplify our investment in the way the world is heading," Schwartz said in a statement.