Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft To Lay Off 700 Employees Next Week, Report Says (geekwire.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the heads-up dept.

According to a report by Business Insider (Warning: may be paywalled), Microsoft will cut about 700 jobs in conjunction with its quarterly earnings release next week. GeekWire reports: The latest layoffs are part of the company's previously announced plan to cut about 2,850 roles globally during its current fiscal year, according to the Business Insider report. The company declined to comment this afternoon, but we understand the report to be accurate, based on our own sources. Next week's cuts will be spread across a variety of job functions inside the company. The company's previous job cuts have come in areas including its smartphone business and global sales team. Microsoft announced its largest cuts in July 2014, eliminating 18,000 jobs, or 14 percent of the company at the time.

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. The death spiral is continuing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's the way of big companies. The same thing happened in IBM and Nokia. The management gets bonuses based on short term goals. They start to cut the long term investment. They fail to do the research needed to deliver good products their customers need. They start to cheat their customers. After some years the business sufffers from loss of revenue. Only by cutting costs can they keep the profits. The management gets bonuses based on short term goals.

    Quite early in the cycle you start filtering out so that the best people who can leave do leave and the worst people who can't leave but don't mind sacrificing their friends fight their way to the top. Microsoft ceased being critical years ago. It ceased being important recently. Soon it will cease being relevant. Speaking as a veteran of such a spiral (which is why I have to post anon), if you are good and you are working there get out now whilst having Microsoft on your CV still won't block your possibility to work elsewhere.

    1. Re:The death spiral is continuing. by ClaraBow · · Score: 2, Interesting

      But back to MS: they absolutely are critical and relevant, because everyone's PC runs on their software. .

      Seriously, when you use hyperbole and straight-out lie, I stop listening. There are a lot of PCs that don't run on Windows. Millions run Mac OS, Various Linux distros, and Chrome Os is making a huge dent in the educational market. Windows and MS Office isn't as important and prevalent as they used to be. They are a hugely important company, but they are not as influential on the PC market as they used to be.

    2. Re:The death spiral is continuing. by c · · Score: 5, Interesting

      But back to MS: they absolutely are critical and relevant, because everyone's PC runs on their software.

      Their problem, though, is that everyone's PC runs on their old software just as well (if not better) than their new software.

      What the Windows 10 debacle has shown is that the old stuff is good enough that the only way they can push the new stuff to a reasonable fraction of their users is to essentially force it on them, for free.

      At the same time, efforts to diversify into other areas have not been, to put it charitably, as successful as they would have liked.

      I'll agree that they're still critical and relevant, but at the same time, they're the least critical and most irrelevant than any other time in the history of the PC.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
    3. Re: The death spiral is continuing. by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But little that could be seen to change the computing market.

      Why should I care what IBM does? If they need my interest, what can they do to capture it?

      What makes you think they care about changing the computing market, or your interest? You seem to think that the role of companies is to change or improve the world. It isn't. The only reason companies exist is to make money. If IBM is doing that, then it's successful in its mission.

  2. Microsoft is leaning itself out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think Microsoft is saying one thing in public and doing just the opposite. It has not improved its mobile position in the least with Windows 10. Universal Apps is a flop on the desktop and even Xbox is selling half of what Playstation is for Sony. Windows 10 probably can't be considered a flop, but it certainly shows much in value to its users as sales flat lined after the free upgrade period. Even the Surface line appears to be struggling to expand in a market where cheap PC's are the only thing propping up sales. Office and cloud seem to be the only bright spot for Microsoft these days.