Evernote Shuts Down Three Offices, Lays Off 47 Staff

Note taking productivity app Evernote has announced a round of 47 job cuts as three of its global offices are to shut down, the company’s CEO announced this week.

Evernote has been facing strong competition recently from in-house note taking apps found on Google’s Android and Pages on Apple’s iOS.

Cull

With this latest cull, it seems Evernote may be struggling to keep up with its third party software that also provides voice recording and handwriting support.

Even Business Insider wrote this month that Evernote is “well down the path to failure”.

Judging by the public blog post written by CEO Chris O’Neill, who has been in the position for just two months, it is clear to see the company is struggling in a crowded marketplace.

“I believe that a smaller, more focused team today will set us up for growth and expansion tomorrow,” wrote O’Neill.

O’Neill joined Evernote from a ten-year stint at Google, heading up the business operations role in Google X. He was brought on board in July with a heady focus of increasing revenue.

“Chris will help the company focus on sustaining growth, increasing revenue, and on an overall reimagining of the productivity tools that enhance an increasingly global and mobile modern workforce,” the company wrote in a statement at the time.

It was clear, even then, that change was needed.

And now that change has started. O’Neill said in his blog post that Evernote will be focusing on new products, and cutting the ones that just aren’t working.

“[Evernote] will launch major foundational product improvements around the core features that you care about most, and we will pull back on initiatives that fail to support our mission,” O’Neill said.

He did point out that the number of new paid subscribers at Evernote has increased 40 percent over the past 12 months, but in seems to be a case of the old subscribers perhaps realising a subscription just isn’t worth it.

“This is an important moment in the life of our company. I want to thank all the Evernoters, past and present, for creating a product that is such a positive force in the lives of individuals and teams around the world,” O’Neill wrote.

“This company and this product are truly special, and I intend to keep it that way.”

TechWeekEurope has contacted Evernote to try and learn about the fate of the 47 employees, but has not yet received a response at the time of publishing.

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