Microsoft cuts 800 extra jobs
updated 03:05 pm EST, Wed November 4, 2009
Microsoft cuts go beyond planned 5K
Microsoft today confirmed late rumors and said it has cut 800 additional jobs. The positions are spread across many of the company's divisions and are above and beyond the 5,000 cuts planned at the start of the year. No direct explanation is given other than that the company says it still has to "manage [its] businesses closely" and watch for where it can trim costs.
The latest round of layoffs also officially concludes a Microsoft job reduction plan in 11 months, ahead of schedule.
All of the job cuts this year have been rare for Microsoft, which has traditionally avoided cutting jobs whenever possible but has faced little choice. A combination of the poor world economy and active resistance to Windows Vista has triggered three consecutive quarters of revenue declines that haven't been fully offset by online business or the Xbox 360. Windows 7 is also less than two weeks old and has yet to have a definitive impact on Microsoft's bottom line.
Most of Microsoft's remaining challenges involve hesitation to adopt Windows 7 at the workplace as well as its lagging Windows Mobile business.
Preserve margins...
11/04, 03:44pm reply
It's sad to see yet another corporation fire those who make the company to appease those who would buy and sell its shares on a whim. Preserving margins for shareholders (who should take their profits and losses from trading in those shares) at the expense of the employees is actually quite short-sighted. Microsoft's problems are top-down issues of poor management, a lousy road-map and an ethos driven more by spite, mendacity and petty jealousies than by level-headed business thinking. It's interesting that markets rise and fall with the health of Steve Jobs and yet nobody cares a toss about the sweaty, fat, cholesterol magnet Steve Ballmer. I guess even Microsoft shareholders know that he's worth little to the company except as ballast.
Feathers
Forum Regular
Joined: Oct 1999
Extra
11/04, 03:58pm reply
I love the term "extra jobs"
Like they just found some extra jobs lying around that they didn't know what to do with.... "Man, we have all these extra jobs... lets get rid of them"
byRyan
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jun 2007
And yet...
11/04, 05:18pm reply
they are spending a lot of money on copying Apple's store strategy when they ought to use it more wisely on the product issues they already have.
rjdude
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Apr 2009
hey
11/04, 05:19pm reply
at least the zune is still here. what's it losing... 100 million a year? they're going to need to fire more people.
nat
Junior Member
Joined: Mar 2002
Fire the M$ joker
11/05, 01:32am reply
It would be nice to see M$ fire the person in their extra job for the place of joker... The Balmer. :)
IxOsX
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Feb 2009