Microsoft's Midlife Crisis

pillageplunder writes "This article from Businessweek covers the recent memo sent to all Microsoft employees by Steve Ballmer. Interesting tidbits through-out: how Microsoft will try to cut a Billion dollars in expenses, and its cost per employee is about $300K"

Comments

$300k per employee?

[Sadiq]

$300k per employee? I wonder how much of that is in weed.... could explain alot of things...

Knew it was coming...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Gates knew exactly when the right time to leave was :)

Re:Knew it was coming...

[CodeWanker]

Bill Gates and a small boy were walking through the woods. "It sure is dark and scary in here!" the small boy said. "How do you think I feel?" replied the Bill Gates. "I have to walk back all alone."

mid-life crisis

[Coneasfast]

i think steve ballmer reached his mid-life crisis long ago.

Re:mid-life crisis

[chadjg]

So, does this mean that Win XP 2006 will get a Harley and start humping BeOS behind Ballmer's back?

going to hell now...

Re:mid-life crisis

[RobKow]

Since when was necrophillia associated with mid-life crises?

Dear Microsoft

[arieswind]

Dear Microsoft,

Welcome to the real world, where your stock does not grow 10,000% in a matter of a few years, and companies have to *gasp* cut costs, or perhaps even *bigger gasp* innovate, to keep their companies from falling flat on their face.

With much love(sorta),

The World

Re:Dear Microsoft

[Mr_Huber]

Oh, dear. This just flashed into my head...

Bill, lying naked on a table: "Why do my dividinds hurt?"

Linus, looking down, sad and concerned: "You've never issued them before."

solution:

[blue_adept]

immediately discontinue the "one dollar for each reported bug" program.

Pit stains

[bujoojoo]

Maybe if Ballmer wouldn't charge his dry cleaning to his expense account, they wouldn't be in such dire straights...

DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!!!!

Lets help these guys out...

[cOdEgUru]

Now..now..play nice.

Everyone look at poor M$ in the corner, dying a slow death for the lack of another Billion in the bank.. Lets not let that happen..shall we..being the good neighbours we are..

So here is what I recommend.. The slashdot community will, painful as it is, will map out the various product lines of Microsoft with their perceived value, which needs to be truncated or snuffed out completely. Once we are all in agreement as to the total worth is a Billion, Cmdrtaco, the chosen representative, will submit said list to the powers that be (read: Balmy Balmer) for review and acceptance.

So get your thinking caps out, check your emotions , pay no heed to the thousands of M$ programmers who will obviously hate you for nixing their much loved products, let reason run rampant..and lets choose what Microsoft needs to put another Billion in the bank!

Midlife crisis...

[Zorilla]

In other news, Microsoft is nearing the release of their two newest products: Microsoft Combover and Microsoft Penis Car

Re:Gotta innovate, not replace

[Pharmboy]

Why does somebody who has Windows 2000 need Windows XP?

Twice the eye candy, and its so much more powerful, you get to reboot twice as often.

They could save about $800 per employee

[Anonymous Coward]

By switching to Linux and OpenOffice/KOffice on their desktops. Not their development or testing machines, but just their accountants, security team, and call centers.

Dang! Wait a sec...Windows and Office are free to them, so it only saves on the cost of anti-virus + downtime/patch maintenance, so that's probably only $50 per user or so.

Re:troll fest

[tatsu69]

You suck at trolling and even starting a troll... You have to do it right.

I use Microsoft everyday and love it. I want Bill Gates to have my baby and Linux sucks.

Re:I'll go for $270K

[sploo22]

It has to be said...

$300K should be enough for anybody!

Netcraft confirms...

[MoOsEb0y]

Microsoft is dying.

Re:Longhorn

[robochan]

...The big thing is going to be Longhorn--that's why it's taking so long. WinFS, Avalon, whole new interface called Aero Glass, an entire .NET-based OS that replaces Win32, and so on...

I hear it's going ot come bundled with Duke Nukem Forever too.

Switch to Linux...

[mrscott]

Microsoft could save a lot in licensing fees if they just switched to Linux and OpenOffice.

Re:Switch to Linux...

[geeklawyer]

Microsoft could save a lot in licensing fees if they just switched to Linux and OpenOffice

Not really. SCO would sue them.

With their own money...

Re:Pretty high cost

[KilobyteKnight]

$300k per employee is a high stat, but the typical office worker costs a company $100k-$150k a year when things beyond salary such as the cost of supplying that employee with the office space and supplies needed to do their job, insurance costs, administrative expenses, and other such costs are factored in.

Often one department in a big company "charges" other departments for accounting purposes. Perhaps the additional cost is the inter-department cost of licensing only Microsoft software.

Re:Pretty high cost

[Kickstart70]

Paper towels!?

Three jobs ago I work for a VP for complained rather bitterly about the amount of toilet paper we were using. While making sure to look directly at the two women in the office (out of about 15 guys), he warned quite seriously that "theft or overuse" of toilet paper would cause him to restrict what was made available.

Was very glad to leave that place.

KS

Dear Mr. Ballmer

[Pan T. Hose]

My open letter to Steve Ballmer:

Dear Mr. Ballmer,

As a scientist and developer developer developer developer, I believe I can answer some of your concerns:

We must also work to change a number of customer perceptions, including the views that older versions of Office and Windows are good enough [...]

I can sincerely assure you that I, for one, have never considered older (or newer, for that matter) versions of Microsoft Office and Windows good enough. Not even once. You can stop worrying about that.

On the need to innovate: The key to our growth is innovation. Microsoft was built on innovation, has thrived on innovation, and its future depends on innovation. [...] We lead in innovation in most areas where we compete, and where we do lag [...] rest assured that the race to innovate has just begun and we will pull ahead. [emphasis added]

Now, no matter how much you believe your developers developers developers developers to innovate innovate innovate innovate, saying the above as a company which, in fact, has never contributed a single notable innovation to any computer-related field... Well... What can I say? You are not only doomed. You are already dead.

Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.

Re:Pretty high cost

[Bingo Foo]

In my company the average per head is $140.

So how are things in the Bangalore call center?

Re:Pretty high cost

[wideBlueSkies]

Very good. Thank you. We only think in Java here, and this is fine.

We are currently creating a critical banking application out of parts we're reusing from other customers products, and open source solutions. We decided to skip several key requirements because we don't understand why the users would need them, and implementing them would not allow us to meet our deadline.

The reused parts, don't exatly fit the remaining requirements, and thus we're modifying the requirments to fit the components.

Just as long as we get a good build on August 1 all will be well. Thank you.

Cheers.

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Not far from the truth over there.

wbs.