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Microsoft To Cut 7,800 More Jobs, Take $7.6 Billion Writedown On Nokia
jones_supa writes: Microsoft is about to announce another round of layoffs. A company press release confirms the plan, saying that it will target up to 7,800 employees and will be aimed mostly at the hardware division. The hardware division includes the lion's share of former Nokia employees, which became part of Microsoft last year. In an e-mail to employees, chief executive officer Satya Nadella reiterated the company's commitment to its phone business, though he also said that some refocusing was necessary and that Microsoft's phone business would reflect the overall Windows strategy: "We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family," the e-mail reads. "As a result, the company will take an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia Devices and Services business in addition to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million."
Didn't MS buy Nokia for $7B, and they write off $7.6B, so they are pretty much writing off the whole Nokia as worthless.
So, basically Microsoft successfully killed the actual Nokia, successfully transferred the IP to themselves, have completely screwed the pooch in terms of being able to manage an acquisition which never made any sense ... and now they've written off the purchase.
I'm sorry, but if you're taking over $7 billion in writedowns, maybe the decision to but it in the first place was stupid and misguided?
This just sounds like Microsoft pissed away billions trying to prop up their failing phone, and are now leaving the rotting carcass of Nokia in their wake.
Is this anything but mismanagement and hubris? Because it sounds like other than fucking up Nokia it hasn't achieved a damned thing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sometimes I feel like Ahab when it comes to Microsoft. and yet the truth is, Google is the new Microsoft. they are the Microsoft of the Internet so to speak. indeed there are many companies that resemble Microsoft, for instance Starbucks is the Microsoft of coffee and equally evil.
Apparently Elop is also out as part of the layoffs. Most likely he'll get a big payout for his part.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This is sure to resolve the skilled tech labor shortage that the tech giants have been complaining about.
Going from ballmers dominator approach in which all markets become a subservient cash-cow for Microsoft product-driven walled gardens of commerce and perpetual licensing, to "we just want to make it a windows thing" is still completely missing the point. the 7 billion dollar writeoff is the business equivalent of a hangover from 30 years of chasing a white rabbit everyone else had already caught. focusing on windows isnt a business strategy, its a suicide letter.
For what windows does in the real world, other companies already do better and most importantly cheaper. games? steam is a household name. word processing? a google docs enabled chromebook has that covered in spades along with social networking and internet. While microsoft was busy jumping through hoops with zune, windows phone, and surface tablet, they completely ignored the fact that despite competitors dominating a product segment in terms of sales, their competitors had obsoleted the very birthright applications of redmond itself: the apps.
Microsoft has XBox (for now) and a contractual model of business licensing that will assume more and more the role of a monarchy over a colony as time marches on until finally the very same companies that targeted redmonds consumer products will begin to target their business divisions as well. A few more years here and there of fervent litigious hand waving will commence, more layoffs will ensue, and eventually Microsoft will have found itself not consumed 'cancerously' by the open source it vilified, but entirely sidestepped.
Good people go to bed earlier.
In other news, Microsoft is hiring 7800 H1B workers to head up their new mobile division.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I say we wait another 80 years. If most cellphone users are dead by then, it means that those wavelengths really are dangerous.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
And the yearly stacked ranking and purging wasn't enough? MS problem was that they were in the 90s mindset where they could buy themselves into new areas by buying companies. They got good people but the problem was they didn't know what to do with those companies.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Now let's hope the rumors that Nokia will begin producing Android smartphones in 2016 are true.
www.gaiageek.com
This isn't Apple envy. They didn't say they want to focus on one offering. They said they want a vibrant ecosystem that includes their first-party devices.
Distinction without a difference really.
They've learned that when you're making the bulk of your OS's phones yourselves, there's little incentive for competitors to license your software.
Microsoft's problem is that their business model has been to SELL software. That worked fine in the PC market place because the hardware and the software were abstracted from each other AND they managed to become a de-facto standard before something like linux came along. Microsoft's problem in mobile is that they tried to replicate that business model (selling software to third party hardware makers) while Google was almost literally giving away Android to all of Microsoft's potential customers. Google makes their money from ads, not software sales so Google effectively evaporated any profit margin for Microsoft or anyone else who wasn't vertically integrated in mobile. The moment Nokia dumped their own platform for Windows they were effectively dead because nobody else wanted to use Microsoft's software and Nokia wasn't going to be able to drive it into the mobile marketplace by themselves.
So instead what Microsoft is belatedly realizing is that they should have followed Apple's model and vertically integrated for mobile. Apple is a software company fundamentally. What makes a mac different from a PC is OS X. What makes an iPhone different from an Android phone is iOS. The hardware is basically the same underneath. So Apple sells you their software but won't sell it without a fairly nice device to go along with it. However an important feature in this is that Apple has design chops and retail experience in their DNA. Microsoft doesn't. So Microsoft has to replicate what Apple is doing without the design culture that makes Apple successful at doing it.
Basically it's fortunate for Microsoft that they have a huge amount of cash in the bank because I think they are going to burn through a lot of it trying to transform the company into something they currently are not. They have enough cash that I'm not about to declare them dead but Microsoft doesn't have an easy road ahead of them I think.
They are writing off *more* than they paid for Nokia, pretty much saying Nokia was worse than worthless...
but for tablet use they are just too darned heavy. When I hold one like a tablet I think, "where can I put this down" because it's too heavy to just nonchalantly carry like a tablet.
And then when you try to use it like a laptop, you say, "what is with this terrible keyboard" and "why can't I use it as an actual lap-top"
The Surface is like a Pontiac Fiero, trying hard to be two things at once and not doing either of them particularly well.