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Microsoft Lays Off 2,100, Axes Silicon Valley Research
walterbyrd writes with news of Microsoft layoffs. Microsoft Corp will close its Silicon Valley research-and-development operation as part of 2,100 layoffs announced on Thursday, as it moves toward its new CEO's goal of cutting 18,000 staff, or about 14 percent of its workforce. News of the closure of the Microsoft Research lab at the company's campus in Mountain View, California, was first made public on Twitter by employees. The company later confirmed the move and said it would involve the loss of 50 jobs.
Maybe Nadella got tired of hearing about the year of Linux on the desktop, and decided to finally make it happen? Anyhow, good luck without your researchers. I hope it was the ones responsible for Windows 8.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The employees we could have paid with that 2.5 billion are a useless drag on our bottom line.
When you say "intellect-nots" and talk of shortages of "smart employees", you mean there are too many people who don't want to code intrusive ads to sell sell sell, right? Maybe you're the one who's not so smart, looking for robotic employees you're too stupid to code.
"We desperately need more H1B's to manage the staff reduction! We cannot afford to retrain our existing employees in staff reduction management technologies." -MS
Table-ized A.I.
I do wish it didn't involve reducing the size of their research operations.
Why? Microsoft has a long history of hiring many top researchers, and then doing very little with the results. It is much better for those researchers to be more productively employed elsewhere. The researchers will have little trouble finding new positions in Silicon Valley, where talent is in high demand.