Bracing for a worsening downturn, EMC late Wednesday said it's going to can 2,400 of its people, roughly 7% of its workforce, to save about $350 million this year and $500 million next year.

The move does not impact VMware, which EMC owns the lion's share of.

The news came ahead of EMC's Q4 financial statement due on January 27 when it expects to post record revenues of ~$4 billion, up about 8% sequentially and 4% year-over-year.

Because of a 10-cent-a-share restructuring charge stemming from the layoffs, EMC's GAAP earnings will only amount to 13 or 14 cents. Absent the charge, they'd work out to 23 or 24 cents a share and absent stock-based compensation and intangible asset amortization they'd be 30 or 31 cents a share.

CEO Joe Tucci said in a statement that "Customers are telling us that information infrastructure and virtualization products and solutions are at or very near the top of their IT spending priorities. This, coupled with the technological advantage and quality of EMC's solutions and the strength of our sales and service organizations, helped us achieve our Q4 financial goals."

The company said the cost-cutting would consolidate back-office functions, field and campus offices; rebalance investments towards higher-growth products and markets; reduce management layers; and further reduce its indirect spend on contractors, third-party services and travel.

"We managed our costs and investments very carefully throughout 2008," Tucci said. "However, we believe this additional program will help us strike the right balance between achieving higher levels of efficiency and sustaining strong business agility and performance, without in any way compromising our ability to serve the needs of our customers over the long-term."

EMC will take a pre-tax restructuring charge of $248 million in the fourth quarter and additional pre-tax restructuring charges of $100 million-$125 million across 2009 and 2010.

As part of the program, EMC said it is undertaking several initiatives to transform the structural efficiency of how it operates worldwide, including the consolidation and movement of various facilities and processes beginning in 2009 and completed by the end of 2010. That'll mean additional non-recurring pre-tax transition costs of $75 million-$100 million.