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Microsoft To Lay Off Another 2,850 People In the Next 12 Months (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Business Insider: Microsoft is planning to lay off 2,850 more employees in the next 12 months or so, according to Microsoft's full 10-K report it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Part of the document reads: "In addition to the elimination of 1,850 positions that were announced in May 2016, approximately 2,850 roles globally will be reduced during the year as an extension of the earlier plan, and these actions are expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2017." Business Insider reports: "The first 1,850 layoffs mentioned here were mainly from Microsoft's struggling smartphone business, including 1,350 employees in Finland working at what was once Nokia world headquarters. These layoffs also included people in Microsoft's salesforce, which was recently reorganized and saw the departure of COO Kevin Turner. In total, Microsoft laid off 7,400 employees in its last fiscal year, which ended on June 30th, 2016. The new layoffs are a continuation of the same plan, and include the sales group as well as others. About 900 people affected by the new layoffs were already informed during the sales reorganization, according to a person familiar with Microsoft's plans."
The severance pittance^W package is tied to an "exit interview" that involves upgrading to Windows 10.
MS must have some kind of assurance the H1B pipeline will be at full capacity for the foreseeable future.
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Sick of seeing profitable companies laying people off like this. I'm a right to work guy normally but this is starting to really piss me off. My company did the same shit. Had a great quarter then the next day after earnings released "By the way we need to lay off 3% of staff to position us better for next quarter."
Tech industry should really unionize. I hate unionize generally but this industry needs it.
Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have promised this for years. Only Trump and the Republicans are complaining about the loss of jobs for Americans. This is what I read and hear in the News Media.
They are pivoting to the cloud. Firing people who worked on non-cloud projects (mainly smartphone), hiring new ones to work on cloud projects. Incidentally, the total Microsoft workforce is ~115,000, so this is not a huge amount.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It looks like 2014 saw a large bump in employees:
:)
Fiscal Year Ending Head Count Net Revenue (US$) Growth Net Income (US$) Growth
June 30, 2016 114,074 $85.32B -9% $16.79B 38%
June 30, 2015 117,354 $93.58B 8% $12.19B -45%
June 30, 2014 128,076 $86.83B 12% $22.07B 1%
June 30, 2013 99,139 $77.85B 6% $21.86B 29%
June 30, 2012 94,290 $73.72B 5% $16.98B -27%
June 30, 2011 90,412 $69.94B 12% $23.15B 23%
Going from 99,139 in 2013 to 114,074 in 2016 seems like it tracks better with previous growth patterns.
http://news.microsoft.com/fact... But please don't let this change your opinion.
1. They unload Win10 on the world, only partially designed, and sucker us into doing their product testing. Then, the add more and more complexity with unnecessary "features" that are mere click bait.
2. Then, the declare it's the last of the "Windows" line (unlikely, and a stupid claim by an executive without credibility to assert it.)
3. Now, they plan to get rid of productive employees. Why? "Bottom line" or, as Jack Welch said, early in his career at GE CEO, "the purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder return on investment." Then, two years ago, after retirement, he admits in Forbes' magazine that his was "...the dumbest idea in the world."
4. And Microsoft is joining the cadre of companies with "great (aka overpaid) CEOs" (usually self-proclaimed) who produce poor results over the long-term (see http://www.wsj.com/articles/be...).
They're about to fall off a cliff...and they think they're on solid ground. Mark my words.
Trump also complained that salaries are too high...
What a shock, MS is bailing on the phone business, i.e. an industry where their bully monopolistic practices were useless and they had to rely on their shitty, shitty code, interface, and business practices to compete with competitors who actually know how to make software that isn't a steaming pile of shit. Shocking! But of course, MS won't reverse course on developing shitty bug-ridden software, they have trademarks to protect after all.
Monstar L
So technical training is all I need to get a good job and keep it?
I'd say so, given the pattern of MS layoffs thus far:
* QA people
* Salesmen
* Manufacturing workers in FInland
* More salesmen
Coding seems to be the place to be. I know some devs were layed off along the way, but from what I hear backchannel it's still a net increase in coding jobs (cloud and mobile growing fast, other areas slowly shrinking).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Of course don't forget that M$ were at the DNC, the corporate convention to pick politicians with their cheque books, to lobby for more H1B this whilst planning those layoffs or what, redundant, cough, cough too expensive, fully trained and experienced individuals. Those ass hat corporate executives are truly shameless, in public, don't care who sees it, corruption or the democratic process to feed their greed. You reckon M$ would pull it's head in a bit after the mass invasion of privacy of Windows anal probe 10 but nope, not one bit of shame or embarrassment, straight back at screwing customers and staff over, like there is no tomorrow (I will never understand why M$ employees put up with that shit, I wonder how many of them are comfortable using Windows anal probe 10 at home, looking for a job, complaining about working at M$ or just trying to relax with some pron, whilst their employer looks over their shoulder or right at their face or just what they are looking or recording their communications or doing all of that at once, M$ employees would have to be the most spied on people on the planet, ugh).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have promised this for years.
While this is true...
Only Trump and the Republicans are complaining about the loss of jobs for Americans.
...complaining? Yes. Sincerely? Not so much.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So technical training is all I need to get a good job and keep it?
I'd say so, given the pattern of MS layoffs thus far: * QA people * Salesmen * Manufacturing workers in FInland * More salesmen
Coding seems to be the place to be. I know some devs were layed off along the way, but from what I hear backchannel it's still a net increase in coding jobs (cloud and mobile growing fast, other areas slowly shrinking).
A company doesn't need Salesmen when it can push out a product digitally and only a few people whine about it. As for Q&A people just reduce them, after all we have over 300 million testers out there and we can always push out mandatory patches latter.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Why would you develop for a windows phone when you know MS reputation for fucking people?
The problem Windows Phone had was not that it was bad, it was that it wasn't disruptive or innovative.
This is not how I saw things go down.
Initially once upon a time there was a solid base of former CE developers very interested in windows phone. They wanted to get on board but Microsoft had to go f*** it all up.
They locked everything down emulating the Apple walled garden, required very specific versions of windows /w hyper-v and visual studio to develop anything and made you buy a Microsoft account. They militantly insisted on a Spartan ugly interface with no customization options. UI was all based on some forsaken piece of shit called Silverlight, APIs were half baked and not even finished and oh by the way you can't run any native code whatsoever.
On top of draconian bullshit, no compatibility, no apps, absence of basic core features that existed even in windows mobile and no user base developers basically gave MS the one finger salute and went to Android.
You need a feature - or set of features - that will entice users to the point they will be willing to abandon their existing applications in favor of your platform and its applications.
My personal opinion if Microsoft started out with feature parity and dropped the misfeatures (Fugly Metro/Silverlight, malware, Apple style lockin and lack of customization) windows phone would have a healthy market share today.
This is the same reason Linux hasn't been able to supplant Windows on the desktop, it's not that there is anything wrong with it, it's that it doesn't offer anything compelling in innovative or disruptive features.
If that were true you would think we wouldn't be hearing of high profile attempts to switch to Linux desktop failing.
There's no point waiting for Microsoft to screw up, if their past screwups with Windows haven't driven customers to Linux then nothing will, Linux needs that disruptive innovation to capture the users.
My opinion is they just need parity with Windows and Linux advocates need to stop pretending it already exists.
General purpose operating systems are mature technology driven by incremental accumulation of dead labor. If you bet on disruptive change you WILL lose. The only changes we are likely to see going forward will be both hard won and increasingly inconsequential. I think Linus had it exactly right on his comments about wearing the competition down.
If you're an unemployed programmer, the problem is you.
Bullshit. The employment market has been negatively affected by the deliberate actions of the government and corporations. If you think that you're such a special snowflake that these sociopaths wouldn't get of you in a heartbeat you're one of those libertarian delusionalists. That you're employed is simply because they haven't finished yet, but there's no reasoning with the pull yourself up by your own bootstrap crowd. You probably believe in tax cuts for 'job creators' too.
Sure, doing those things you say will increase your odds and you'll be ok for a while. Of course we'd all have an easier time were it not for very active sabotage of our career prospects by well funded sociopaths encouraging foreign trade schools to turn out legions of barely qualified third world job stealers.
One wonders if you think that unemployed steel workers are their own problem. I mean the government at the behest of large corporations actively encouraging and subsidizing import of cheap steel had nothing to do with that, it's all on the individual, right? Libertarians disgust me.
Personally i think a good number of the wealthy are hoarders.But instead of keeping every newspaper they ever touched, or plastic bag, or wanting to buy every single doll they see. They hoard money, and like other hoarders they are emotionally pained to see even one bit of it removed.
Is Satya Nadella an H1B himself? Sounds like one.