Doesn't bode well...

[petermcleland]

...for P3D:-

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/ ... solidate-/

[DaveG]

Don't know about the long term, but a couple of quotes from a LM rep in the P3d forums:

I cannot comment on general LM activity, but the Prepar3D team is going strong.

and

V2.0 will be released this month. More information to come next week.

[Airspeed]

It does not, Peter,
Something I found unnerving, though, was this:

" .....the nation’s top weapons supplier, said it was making the move in response to slumping demand from its biggest customer, the Department of Defense."

Who else is on their customer list?

[TSR2]

The MoD, Australian air force, and most western governments

I suspect if LM were to need to cull Prepar3d, they'd do it as going concern.

[Chris Trott]

I'm not worried. Lockheed is a massive company. 4,500 jobs, while a lot, isn't unusual for a government contractor (unfortunately). It rarely means that there's any serious financial issue underlying. It usually means that a contract has expired and because there doesn't look to be further work, they're being let go so that Lockheed isn't absorbing costs without revenue. Almost all of their cuts are in the public sector jobs, which is not where the P3D team resides. Most of their cuts are in areas where the business has already been cut back anyway and they just had skeleton crews maintaining the facility. Their Horizon City, TX location, for example, built the Compact Kinetic Missile that the US DoD cancelled over 2 years ago. It makes sense to close it with the continued defense spending cuts since all of the systems that the CKEM was to be used with have also now been cancelled as a result of the recent sequestration.

Until they say they're making massive cuts in their IT division (which is what P3D is under), there's little need for concern. Lockheed has been in far worse positions financially before (see L1011 and C-5).