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Julian Richards, UK PR Manager for HP Labs, said the cuts will be in line with the 10 per cent cull HP announced for the rest of the company. For HP Labs, that works out at about 70 people.

He said that Cambridge Research Labs in Boston will close, as will the Consumer Applications and Systems Laboratory - although a number of projects will be transferred elsewhere within the

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division. The Emerging Technologies Laboratory and Advanced Software Research labs will also go. The latter was led by Alan Kay, widely considered a pioneer because of his work on ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet.

In addition a layer of management will go in the three research centres into which HP Labs is grouped. And now one manager will report to HP Labs Director Dick Lampman.

Richards said the group will be 'concentrating on strategic areas, on areas that will continue to be strategic for the future ... Our aim is to support HP'.

He said research into areas such as utility and grid computing, data centres, market systems, disruptive technologies such as nano-technology and quantum computing would be ongoing. Printing and Imaging research would also continue.

Richards stressed that it is still early days and details are still not clear either to how the cutbacks affect HP Labs in Bristol, or the individual projects themselves.