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

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.

Comments

The death spiral is continuing.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The death spiral is continuing.

[Grishnakh]

This is some seriously delusional thinking. Microsoft not critical or relevant? What are you smoking?

First off, IBM is still here if you haven't noticed. They got out of PCs, but they still do lots of other stuff and are a huge and profitable company.

But back to MS: they absolutely are critical and relevant, because everyone's PC runs on their software. That isn't going to change, probably ever. If Windows 10 couldn't convince people to dump them, nothing will. They might not have gotten anywhere in mobile devices, but that doesn't matter because they still have their Windows and Office cash cows, and those aren't going anywhere, and there's no threats to them (do you see businesses switching all their workstations to OSX or Linux? Nope).

MS is doing the right thing: cut employees, and cut all long-term investment, and just keep slapping some new lipstick on the Windows and Office pigs. Corporations in particular will happily continue to pay through the nose for MS's enterprise products, and consumers are happy to use Windows 10 with its built-in spyware and advertising which MS makes money from indirectly. MS doesn't need to invest long-term, they just need to keep milking their cash cows. They can do this indefinitely, because the whole Windows 10 experience has proven, without a doubt, that customers simply will not leave that platform no matter what, and no matter how much it costs them.

Re:The death spiral is continuing.

[c]

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.

Microsoft's effective negative advertising

[Futurepower(R)]

Microsoft top managers decided to try to force everyone who isn't technically knowledgeable to move to the Windows 10 operating system so that Microsoft could offer "Apps", like the Android and Apple cell phone systems.

Microsoft ignored the fact that trying to sell "Apps" when people have work to do on their computers is not appropriate.

Windows 10 tries to force Microsoft's control, imitating the cell phone companies that, more and more, take control away from the customer and user.

That acted as extremely effective negative advertising. Almost every technically knowledgeable person is now aware of what they consider extreme abuse.

In my opinion, the negative advertising damages Microsoft and indicates that Microsoft top managers are not competent.

I have a better solution....

[Lumpy]

They need to lay off 700 executives.

Saves more money and fixes a big problem with Microsoft... They are top heavy as hell