BroadSoft cuts jobs -- but how many?

BroadSoft is laying off people, but just how many?  The company, located in Gaithersburg, Md., reports the cuts will occur in the EMEA region and the U.S. and will come from BroadSoft's sales, product management and engineering divisions.

An initial report had BroadSoft laying off around a dozen of its nearly 300 employees, according to a gigaom.com piece published Friday. However, other reports and sources indicate the number may be much higher.

On Friday, BroadSoft vice president of marketing Leslie Ferry confirmed cutbacks, but did not state the exact number of positions eliminated. Sources close to the company have put the total number of jobs cut in the range of 30 or more, but Broadsoft did not return requests for interviews by press time to verify this number.

The company reported that slowing sales prompted the cutbacks, but also, somewhat contradictorily, reported it was on pace to grow profits and revenue. Wouldn't the company have a slower pace to grow profits and reviews if sales are slowing?

Wild rumor on the street has BroadSoft looking at a major acquisiton/merger deal. Could the cuts be some trimming up prior to a merger or major acquisition by BroadSoft?  We saw this happen over at BroadSoft's Gaithersburg, MD neighbor, NexTone, prior to its acquisition by GENBAND.

For more:
- see the gigaom.com post here [1] 

Related articles
Digium and BroadSoft [2] Play Well Together
BroadSoft and Microsoft [3] announce hosted UC alliance
BroadSoft buys GENBAND [4] App Server