Microsoft CEO To Slash 18,000 Jobs, 12,500 From Nokia To Go

DW100 (2227906) writes "Satya Nadella has taken an axe to Microsoft's 127,000-strong workforce by announcing a whopping 18,000 job cuts, including 12,500 from the recently integrated Nokia division. At least 13,000 jobs will go within the next six months." It's official, Ballmer's layoff record has been smashed. From the email sent to employees: "The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce. With this in mind, we will begin to reduce the size of our overall workforce by up to 18,000 jobs in the next year. Of that total, our work toward synergies and strategic alignment on Nokia Devices and Services is expected to account for about 12,500 jobs, comprising both professional and factory workers. We are moving now to start reducing the first 13,000 positions, and the vast majority of employees whose jobs will be eliminated will be notified over the next six months."

Comments

I really really hate

[bravecanadian]

CEO-speak.. "building the right organization" "work towards synergies and strategic alignment" gobbledygoop

I'm all for cutting out bureaucracy where it isn't needed but come on man..

Beware these muppets

[Anonymous Coward]

Just another puppet inheriting the stink barge. Nothing will change at Microsoft. Cuts, layoffs, and generally contribution to economic stagnation is all these clowns are about. Pay no attention to what they ever say. Watch what they do... and it's always the same...

Dilbert words: Can anything be as demoralizing?

[Squidlips]

Words like "synergies and strategic alignment" and right sizing are right out of the Dilbert Mission Statement generator (which used to be on the Dilbert web site). Nothing can be as demoralizing as being managed by exec's so stupid that they have never read Dilbert.

Re:Dilbert words: Can anything be as demoralizing?

[gstoddart]

Nothing can be as demoralizing as being managed by exec's so stupid that they have never read Dilbert.

The problem in real life, as it is in Dilbert, is the things we cringe at are the things the executives think "now there's a damned fine idea".

There's a huge disconnect between how management people respond to those things versus what the rest of us do.

Unfortunately, they're the ones calling the shots -- and what we see as parody and satire, they see as an instruction manual.

I don't believe I've ever worked at a company where the management team didn't (on a semi regular basis) take a page straight out of the Dilbert playbook and begin to implement it.

It's like we experience an entirely different reality.

Re:Dilbert words: Can anything be as demoralizing?

[Sir_Eptishous]

Most CEO's and Executive Level types are sociopaths.

Re:Dilbert words: Can anything be as demoralizing?

[gstoddart]

You are no more equipped to understand their job than they are to understand yours.

Horseshit.

I once worked at a company which primarily grew by acquisition.

The running joke (albeit real) was that the VP of R&D from the last major acquisition was now the VP of R&D for the entire company.

And that VP would develop a huge sense of "Not Invented Here", and start to decide that any product which wasn't invented by his company wasn't worth pursuing.

In several instances they tried to fiddle with the core competencies, get rid of things which were absolutely central to the business model, and generally fsck things up. Because the particular brand of hammer they sold was all they understood, and anything else must therefore be unimportant.

I can't even count how many MBAs I've met who had precisely zero experience in the industry they were suddenly in, who started to make decisions which demonstrated that, other than the case studies they did in school, they didn't have a frigging clue. In fact, I've seen numerous examples where their understanding of the technology was so non-existent they couldn't understand what it did, and why their arbitrary choices were disconnected from the real world.

People get parachuted into management positions in companies they know nothing about and don't fully understand, and then apply their one size fits all solution -- even if that solution is a terrible idea.

This belief that someone who has studied management understand either the business or the process of management is a crock of shit. Because anybody who has worked in tech long enough knows damned well that most of them are doing things just to make themselves look important.

We once had a departmental manager insist on building ER diagrams for our product. The problem was, the software wasn't based on an RDB, the ER diagrams were meaningless and misleading, and had absolutely nothing to do with anything.

I've seen situations in which the guy who owned a piece of technology was responsible for deciding that it was the one we should go with, despite overwhelming evidence that the piece of software he was responsible for wasn't capable of doing what it was supposed to replace. This was purely ego, politics, and carving out their own little fiefdom.

You think Elon Musk went into Nokia with an understanding of what Nokia needed as a business? Or merely a view that whatever they were doing was wrong because it wasn't based on Microsoft stuff?

You won't get this until you become a manager, I'm afraid.

If I hadn't seen so many examples of gross incompetence in management, I might actually believe there is a kernel of truth here.

But since I have, I don't.

Management isn't some elite bunch of people with all of the answers. They're a bunch of people who were chosen by a bunch of people like them to carry out policies which have already been decided upon.

And it is as much about politics as it is reality.

Burning platforms

[stoploss]

I guess Nokia's platform really was burning after all. It's just that it was arson.

Re:I guess they won't need any more foreign Visas?

[JaredOfEuropa]

"In order to ensure continued access to scarce skillsets that are key to our ability to innovate, we need to be able to draw flexibly from a global pool of professionals."

(Oh, and we also resent having to pay those scarce and valuable individuals more than $15 / hour. So we'll still need some foreign worker visas, thanks).

IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what IBM does: lays off thousands here in the USA and just hires overseas.

And they still charge an obscene amount for their products and services.

It's all about cost arbitrage now: really cheap technical labor overseas and charge like you have 100% American or Western European labor.

Our country and economy is being bled dry by the multinationals.

While we are distracted by cheaper big screen TV and other electronic toys, the things that really matter are becoming more expensive while our pay is declining - and it's not just inflation. I see jobs here in Metro Atl that are paying $60K+ that once paid $80K+ back in the late 90s. If you include inflation, that's a hell of a pay cut.

But in the meantime, fuel, medical, education, food, housing (rents are going back up) and essentials to living are going up.

We are in a spiral to the bottom because multinational companies are importing poverty from the Third World.

Solution? I stopped buying shit. It helps that retailers are becoming more and more obnoxious. No more rip-off cable or other services like that. Smart phone? Shove it.

Food? I cook and it's all unprocessed - no packaged shit with shit additives.

Car? 20 years old and counting. And I do the maintenance: clutch, head gasket, brakes, you names it. Sorry for the local mechanic, but that's the new reality of our country.

Re:IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to do with IBM. The oligarchs have seized power over the last 20 years and now the screw is being turned. The more they turn, the more scared you become. All around the world, policy is dictated by the corporations and they're invariably directly working against the population.

Re:Nokia sure has bad luck

[Exitar]

Nokia can only blame itself for letting Elop become their CEO years ago.

Stephen Elop

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing that this guy can run the company into the ground and still have a job. How badly do you have to screw up to get fired as a CEO?

Just when you thought morale could not go lower

[Squidlips]

MS already has a hideous management technique called "stack ranking" that killed morale (http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/03/the-terrible-management-technique-that-cost-microsoft-its-creativity/). Now some idiot in management decides to float the story about 5K jobs going away in 6 months and couch it in Dilbert weasel words. So everyone who is not demoralized enough by stack ranking will be terrified by this announcement.

Re:Nokia sure has bad luck

[jcdr]

Very true. How the board was misinformed to the point of doing a such clear suicide is still part of the hidden story. Even more strange is the constant support the board give to the CEO even after all the alarms was turning full red. The "No plan B" concept was the biggest mistake ever from a board.

Re:And in totally unrelated news....

[Aqualung812]

That means, for over 6 months, Microsoft employees won't know for sure whether they will be laid off or kept.

Which means the most talented and valuable employees will find new jobs before there are layoffs, and Microsoft will end up keeping the ones that couldn't find a job elsewhere.

How does this make Microsoft better?

Re:I guess they won't need any more foreign Visas?

[beelsebob]

And yet, somehow, a figure picked out of GP's ass to cause a stir... is?

Re:I guess they won't need any more foreign Visas?

[Entropius]

They continually invent new and creative kinds of suck.

Don't ask; I'm not telling ...

[CaptainDork]

Yeah, my company escorted me out the gate because I was a network jockey and they didn't want me to sabotage the system.

Two days later they're calling me with, "How do we ...," and "What's the passwords for ...," and "Where are the ..."

I offered to respond by email:

"The Firm has made the decision to "right-size" its IT department to better align with strategies going forward. In support of that decision, I know the Firm has retained the very best-of-breed systems analysts and I think we should rely on those superior personnel to figure out what knowledge I departed with. I know you will agree that Firm policy prohibits sensitive communication with non-employees and it is with a spirit of cooperation that I decline to ever speak to any of you ever again."

Half of their employees to be fired.

[pavon]

Microsoft brought over 25,000 Nokia employees in the merger of which 12,500 are to be laid off in the next 6 months. Probably all that's left is the hardware engineers, with nearly all of software, marketing and management getting the boot.

Re:I guess they won't need any more foreign Visas?

[Lumpy]

If you are not making $45 or more an hour you are being robbed. Programmers are massively underpaid compared to the skillset we need to do our jobs. Why the hell do we tolerate deflating the job down to the level of a factory worker?

Re:I guess they won't need any more foreign Visas?

[phantomfive]

Programmers are massively underpaid compared to the skillset we need to do our jobs.

A bachelors degree? We don't 'deserve' to get paid more than chemists, but we do. Like everything else, we get paid according to supply and demand. The skillset required to be an artist is tough to develop, but those guys don't get paid much.