Microsoft Will Close Its Skype Office in London, Nearly 400 Jobs To Be Impacted (techcrunch.com)

Microsoft is closing Skype's office in the UK, according to the Financial Times. The move is likely to affect jobs of nearly 400 people at the London HQ. Commenting on the report, Microsoft said it will "unify some engineering positions," but that it "will be entering into a consultation process to help those affected by the redundancies." From a TechCrunch report: The London office is a key part of Skype's history, since it was the primary engineering site and headquarters of the company before Microsoft acquired it, and it also survived Skype's strange interlude under the ownership of eBay before it was acquired by the big M. While the move is no doubt a blow to London's tech scene, some former insiders told the FT that it's also not a surprise to see it go, largely because a steady stream of executive departures over the last few years have foretold a shift in the locus of power at the company. Post-acquisition, Microsoft has also done a lot of product work on Skype, with plenty of integration with Office 365 and a number of feature introductions that bring it closer in line with Slack.

Comments

Consultation process

[Simon Rowe]

it "will be entering into a consultation process to help those affected by the redundancies."

That's because they have to by law. https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/consultation

Typical Microsoft acquisition result

[HBI]

Can anyone think of a single MS purchase where the employees did well out of the deal, leaving out the original owner?

"Microsoft is buying us" should convince anyone employed by the firm to update their resume.

Re:Typical Microsoft acquisition result

[El Cubano]

Can anyone think of a single MS purchase where the employees did well out of the deal, leaving out the original owner?

Not just MS. I know people who were at small or very small firms that were either directly or indirectly acquired by very large firms (e.g., IBM, HP, General Dynamics, etc.). Not a single one of those friends or acquaintances remained with new large parent company past a year or two. In every instance they mentioned how at first things seemed fine, be eventually the parent wanted to fully assimilate the new acquisition, which meant a loss of the old company culture, structure, etc. Invariably, there were pay cuts, removal of perks, reorganizations, office closures, relocations, and all manner of other changes that would definitely challenge the morale of those who liked the environment of the smaller company.

As far as I can tell this seems to be a potential problem when any large and established company acquires a significantly smaller and/or less established company.

Re:Typical Microsoft acquisition result

[Anonymous Coward]

Big companies don't really buy small companies -- they buy their IP.

Re:Makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to Europe, the US is basically an offshore tax haven.

In fact this is how the US started: by people not wanting to pay taxes. See boston tea party.

Re:A better question is

[tomhath]

Well, it's an app with something over 300 million active users, so I expect there's more to it than tossing a VoIP app out on github. But obviously you know more about how the company should be run than the company itself.

As far as the 400 "redundant" people, than just means they're closing the office and moving the work elsewhere, not that 400 people aren't needed somewhere.

Re:A better question is

[sandbagger]

They're doing business in a few dozen countries. That means dealing with communications regulatory and tax collection agencies in all those places. With hundreds of millions of users, keeping all of those plates spinning does take a certain amount of work.