Microsoft Is Laying off 'Thousands' of Staff in a Major Global Sales Reorganization (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft is poised to layoff thousands of employees worldwide in a move to reorganize its salesforce. A source with knowledge of the planned downsizing told TechCrunch that the U.S. firm would lay off "thousands" of staff across the world. The restructuring is set to include an organizational merger that involves its enterprise customer unit and one or more of its SME-focused divisions. The changes are set to be announced this coming week, we understand. Microsoft declined to comment. Earlier this weekend, the Puget Sound Business Journal, Bloomberg and The Seattle Times all reported 'major' layoffs related to a move to increase the emphasis on cloud services within Microsoft's sales teams worldwide. Bloomberg said the redundancies would be "some of the most significant in the sales force in years."

Comments

QA

[thegreatbob]

Guessing they're sacking the rest of their QA staff, since Windows 10 is clearly coming along so nicely. /snark

Re:QA

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 does not use an internal QA staff. It uses Tata Consultancy Group in Bangalore. It's a QA contracting firm that handles firmware and software QA for much of the Fortune 500.

Re:QA

[knope]

lmfao

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Sure, OSX does all that too, but then I'd have to pay twice as much for half the performance because of the Apple hardware.

I don't know what you're going on about. On a like for like comparison as much as possible, Apple laptops cost about the same or even less than their competition, over the past 8 years when I've bought laptops. Now, you can rightfully argue that the laptop you are happy with costs less than Apple, but if you're needing Apple hardware specs or better, you're not looking any cheaper as far as laptops go. I wish I could say the same about their desktops, hopefully they'll get it right with the desktop (mac pro and hopefully mini) revamp they've announced.

Re:QA

[Hognoxious]

Guessing they're sacking the rest of their QA staff

Come on. Surely they won't get rid of both of them.

Re:QA

[gweihir]

Well, the one thing I do that I currently cannot really do on Linux or virtualized Windows is gaming. I hope that VM Vulcan-passthrough will work reasonably before Win7 goes out of maintenance. If not, I will go for one gaming PC with nothing else on it, no email, no browsing (except game-related) and a Linux box for everything else. I already do something similar with customer laptops, just need to get a 4-way KVM switch and that is it.

Re:QA

[Anonymous Coward]

That is such bullshit. Apple's laptops are consistently overpriced "like for like" compared to the closest matching PC laptop hardware available. PC laptops also have the distinct advantage of not being designed to be unrepairable and non-upgradable. In the vast majority of higher-end PC laptops the RAM and PCIe SSD can be upgraded by the end user. In many there is an option to have both a PCIe SSD and a storage hard drive installed. Good luck desoldering your BGA memory chips and SSD from your overpriced Macbook Pro. If you don't buy the obnoxiously expensive spec upgrades at check-out, your computer is obsolete the minute you need more RAM or internal storage and the only solution is to buy a whole new Apple computer.

Oh, and let me know when the 15" MBP with the Core i7 doesn't cost $2399. This Asus UX501VW laptop with a Core i7-6700HQ, 4K IPS touchscreen, 512GB PCIe SSD, 16GB DDR4 RAM, is $1079 and has VASTLY better specs than the $2399 MBP in practically all categories. Also, more expensive comparable PC laptops that are still priced lower than the 15" MBP only get better and make the (still using outdated DDR3 for some reason...) MBP look like a joke.

But please, feel free to find another way to support your baseless assertion that "on a like for like comparison as much as possible, Apple laptops cost about the same or even less than their competition." I just did a like-for-like comparison and a 15" Apple laptop you could buy right now gives you drastically lower specs for more than double the price than a PC laptop you also buy right now.

Re:QA

[__aaclcg7560]

After all the testing got done with Windows 10, the QA testers got laid off and rehired as customer support representatives in the Bangalore call center.

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

the one thing I do that I currently cannot really do on Linux or virtualized Windows is gaming.

1) We must live on different planets, because on the planet I live on, Linux has more games than I can possibly make time to play, and they work great. For example, Doom is super sweet. Dota2 works great. Zillions of great indy games from Humble. Zillions of games from Steam. Most Windows titles work fine on Wine these days. Vulkan is the icing on the cake... performance out the proverbial yinyang.

2) Windows virtualization on Linux is, roughly speaking, perfect, including GPU virtualization. If you're too lazy to configure Wine then use VMware.

3) Nice troll.

Re:QA

[FlyHelicopters]

Call me when Ghost Recon Wildlands plays on Linux...

Re:QA

[thegreatbob]

At the office where I work, we have about 20 of them now. Many of them have been factory-reset or reinstalled, and no two of them exhibit the same sorts of quirks, and even machines from the same vendors (which were initially consistent) exhibit random, often broken configurations. Broken start menus all over the place, randomly forgotten settings. I will say though, I haven't actually observed it crashing for anything other than a hardware failure. So I'll accept "stable" if it can mean "sitting at a not-responding instance of explorer for minutes at a time". Boots up quick? I had 8.1 ready to log in (on a C2D ~2GHz laptop, spinning rust disk) in about 5 seconds after POST (which was ~3 seconds). Haven't managed to get 10 there yet (best I think I've done on spinning rust is ~15-20 seconds including POST). It's just WAAAY too busy whacking the disk back and forth, doing god-knows-what. It could've been a very good OS if they'd, ya know, had a few more hands to help polish it.

Re:QA

[thegreatbob]

My apologies, understand that my snark exists here to keep eyes on the problem in hopes they'll do something positive about it.

Re:QA

[thegreatbob]

This is unfortunate but informative (would mod+ if i wasn't the OP snark-ass); keeping it in-house might have done them some good by tightening feedback loops. I also wonder how much gets lost in communication with people whose native language is not English (I imagine it's nowhere near as bad as the snarksters would make it out to be, but it can't be 0%).

Re:QA

[thegreatbob]

I about lost it, thanks xD

Re:QA

[FlyHelicopters]

No, but you can't claim that Linux is just as good as Windows then, now can you?

What games play only on Linux and not Windows? There might be a few, but the balance is solidly on the side of Windows.

I first used Linux in the 90's, it has improved by leaps and bounds since then, but it is not going to take over the desktop, and the reasons are not technical in nature...

Re:QA

[BronsCon]

but if you're needing Apple hardware specs or better

then you go Apple, unless you need better, in which case you can't go Apple.

Re:QA

[Zontar The Mindless]

I don't claim that Linux is as good as Windows. I claim that Linux is better.

Re:QA

[goose-incarnated]

the one thing I do that I currently cannot really do on Linux or virtualized Windows is gaming.

1) We must live on different planets, because on the planet I live on, Linux has more games than I can possibly make time to play, and they work great.

I don't care about your gaming faves, I care about mine. Sorry.

Re: QA

[dougdonovan]

the investors like their toys. the staff are a dime a dozen whether they are from india or wherever.

Re:QA

[vux984]

" On a like for like comparison as much as possible, Apple laptops cost about the same or even less than their competition"

Only if you start with the apple laptop as the baseline, and then customize the PC to match.

This is a bogus approach.

It frames the comparison relative to what apple packaged as opposed to what I want to buy.

Whenever I shop Apple its also an exercise in irritation, I don't want the fastest CPU but I'm forced to pay for it to get the other stuff I want. With a PC I can shop for what i actually want. With Apple to get what I want I HAVE to buy a bunch of things I am not the slightest bit interested in. If I want the big SSD and an i3 or i5 I can buy that. That represents a price savings.

And that's without even going into the frustration with ports right now. I want full size hdmi, ethernet, and both usb A and C ports. Apple isn't even at the table right now, doesn't matter what I buy I'd have to work around what Apple offers instead of apple offering what I want to buy.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

I bought my last laptop a year and a half ago, and it was true then. So I just looked, it appears that Dell's XPS 15" 4K system w/ 1 year premium support comes in at $2188 vs a similarly configured base 15" MBP at $2299 now. (I only bothered with Dell as it was the first thing that looked close spec wise and the pricing hadn't changed all that much from There's a few differences, of course, the 4K touchscreen vs a 2K non touch screen, but the 4K system with any version of windows still has scaling problems that don't exist for OSX, so I'm not sure that a 4K (or even 2K if they offered it) W10 system really gains you much.

While Dell does appear to have finally leapfrogged the screen resolution of a MBP, unfortunately neither the underlying OS nor the supposedly better GPU can do it justice. Battery life, well, it's still a Dell, i.e., terrible at less than half the battery life of an MBP, which only lugging an extra couple of pounds in the form of external battery packs will address. Then there's the trackpad, which is still not a touchpad.

All those substandard things really add up when you're looking at a system for working on, as I do, and I may need to run for 7+ hours on battery, while traveling. Nothing so counterproductive and interrupting as being in a multi-hour design and presentation session where the note taking Dell/HP/Lenova users all have to interrupt between 2 and 4 hours to plug in their laptops and share outlets while you're still running on battery power running videos, slideshows, and a live demo.

Tell me what's worth ~$120 there? I haven't even added the software packages you need to be as effective and at least pretend to be safe on windows as you can be out of the box on OSX, because that's highly dependent on your needs and environment and may require at least some similar expenditures on OSX based systems.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Dell XPS 15 with 4K screen, 16GB ram, 512 SSD (which will be slower than the included Apple SSD, but I'll trade that for the 4K resolution).

Apple 15" MBP no touch pad, upgraded to 512 SSD and the mid-level CPU (100MHz slower peak, but 1 step up would put it several hundred higher)

Dell: $2188

Apple: $2299

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Oh, and let me know when the 15" MBP with the Core i7 doesn't cost $2399.

Apple 15" MBP no touch pad, upgraded to 512 SSD and the mid-level CPU (100MHz slower peak, but 1 step up would put it several hundred higher)

$2299 - already upgraded

This Asus UX501VW laptop with a Core i7-6700HQ, 4K IPS touchscreen, 512GB PCIe SSD, 16GB DDR4 RAM, is $1079 and has VASTLY better specs than the $2399 MBP in practically all categories.

• Weight - +10%
• CPU Performance -11%
• Battery -20% at best
• Disk performance - didn't bother confirming but I'll bet it is significantly slower.

Also, more expensive comparable PC laptops that are still priced lower than the 15" MBP only get better and make the (still using outdated DDR3 for some reason...) MBP look like a joke.

I checked the MSI series out when I purchased my last one a little over a year ago - they weren't ready for prime time then, and I'll bet that still holds true today. You will be making tradeoffs with those laptops, either in weight, CPU speed, disk speed and always battery life over a comparable Apple laptop. BTW, one requirement I have is to run UNIX under the covers. I'm 100% fine running Linux or BSD on a laptop, provided they're 1) supported and 2) usable. Battery life is also important to me.

But please, feel free to find another way to support your baseless assertion that "on a like for like comparison as much as possible, Apple laptops cost about the same or even less than their competition." I just did a like-for-like comparison and a 15" Apple laptop you could buy right now gives you drastically lower specs for more than double the price than a PC laptop you also buy right now.

It's not baseless.

Every single laptop you referenced offers significantly diminished battery life, and all use at least some slower components that matter, namely SSDs and CPUs. DDR4 doesn't help you for squat if the CPU is 10% slower to begin with, and if the CPU is as fast or faster, then disk I/O becomes an issue, at least for my workloads. But hey, you lug that heavy half-life laptop along and enjoy your "savings". You'll be spending it on that extra software you'll need that I don't. ;)

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

You cherry picked "a" Dell to make your case.

I picked the system that came closest to meeting my needs a little over a year ago. No cherry picking at all. The MSI rigs didn't cut it then, so I didn't review them again.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, I'd like to see a "better" overall laptop than Apple's pre touch-bar. At least as of last year, it was all trade-offs.

Re:QA

[drinkypoo]

Windows virtualization on Linux is, roughly speaking, perfect, including GPU virtualization. If you're too lazy to configure Wine then use VMware.

Horse shit. Emulation of older versions of DirectX is pretty good, but there's still lots of games which are unplayable in either vmware or wine, to say nothing of other software packages. And wine is the poster child for regressions, so you wind up having to maintain umpty-ump wine versions.

I have a Linux box and a Windows box, and I even have linux on a small M.2 SSD in my Windows box for those times when I need it to save my bacon. I boot it up in vmware occasionally so that I can update it. I think Linux is pretty fantastic. But Windows compatibility continues to be a sore spot.

Re:QA

[BronsCon]

In the pursuit of thin and light, everything is trade-offs. To keep up battery life, they have to use slower CPUs and GPUs, sub-4k displays, and LPDDR (that last one I don't really have a problem with, except that it limits the amount of RAM as well), or they have to make it thicker and heavier, which, well... pursuit of thin and light...

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Then you don't need what Apple's selling, and that's fine. I do need near top CPU performance and disk performance, the 2 biggest things negatively impacting my work. So for me, topping Apple's offerings pre touchbar wasn't worthwhile, especially since I wanted a UNIX based OS.

Re:QA

[gweihir]

As I have tried this from time to time for the last 10 years or so, I can only call you utterly clueless.

Re:QA

[vux984]

Then you don't need what Apple's selling, and that's fine.

No, it's not fine. Its irritating.

I do need [..]

I hope, for your sake, for next years model apple doesn't decide what you need isn't important.

My current 2015 mbp is tolerable. The missing ethernet is annoying. The new ones... are a joke. More stuff I need stripped out (function keys, ports...) replaced with stuff I don't need like "touchbar and apple pay".

Re:QA

[jon3k]

It also has a worse display, worse keyboard, worse trackpad and worse battery life than the Mac.

http://www.pcworld.com/article...

Conclusion On paper, the Zenbook Pro is an incredible deal. It features some extremely high-end parts, yet is amazingly affordable compared to its competitors. After spending time with it, however, it becomes clear why it's less expensive, particularly when compared to the Dell XPS 15 with the exact same specs. The Zenbook Pro'ss performance is slightly weaker, and it has subpar speakers and little oddities like uneven keyboard backlighting and that slap-dash Thunderbolt sticker.

If all you care about is GPU, RAM, CPU and HDD then do not buy a Mac. If you're willing to put up with awful keyboards and trackpads and substandard displays to save some money, there are better options. Honestly, I'm not being sarcastic.

Re:QA

[lsatenstein]

Guessing they're sacking the rest of their QA staff, since Windows 10 is clearly coming along so nicely. /snark

I would say that the Samsung, and other tablet makers that use Android, etc, have eaten into MS sales and MS client use. Today, how may people actually write letters or do long documents?

I use wps.com with Linux (MS Clone that is just great). I also use LibreOffice, which generally comes with some Linux distributions.
So, when desktop sales are down, when 80+% of servers are Linux based, a company can't keep staff that only works 4 hours per day.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

To keep up battery life, they have to use slower CPUs and GPUs, sub-4k displays, and LPDDR (that last one I don't really have a problem with, except that it limits the amount of RAM as well)

Well, learned something new there - LPDDR is why we do not yet have more than 16GB of RAM on MBPs. Should JEDEC ever get around to extending or creating a new standard that supports 24/32GB, it'd be nice. And since LPDDR seems to be a significant contributor to the longer battery life (note all the other laptops with standard replaceable RAM having 50% or less battery life) I'd say that's a trade-off I'm willing to live with. As for GPUs, Apple has seriously tweaked the discrete vs integrated GPU usage so well that I don't see that as being a major issue for battery life. Also, those 4K laptops all use pretty much equivalent discrete GPUs to the one in my MBP, but having a 4K vs 2K 15" screen doesn't really bother me that much. I'd rather have a nice 30-40" 4K external monitor so I can actually use that increased resolution.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Just simply say, "Hey, wow, looks I was incorrect with regards to Apple's pricing compared to equivalent specs from its competitors' laptop hardware offerings."

As countered throughout this thread's offered comparisons there's just not that major of a difference with equivalent hardware. You get differences if you chop 40% of the performance by selecting a much lesser or older CPU, less ram, or cheaper and much slower SSDs. That wasn't the argument - the argument was that like for like, or as close as you can get, Apple hardware is quite competitive. They just don't offer the range of budget options others do, but that's not what we're comparing here. Budget options will always win on price, they'll get clobbered in performance, but that's like complaining that your 1.6L Kia should accelerate like a Ferrari, much less more common high end vehicles. Which brings us back to comparing like with like.

It's okay to be wrong - even on in the internet. Doubling down on it is what makes you a twat.

I don't need to double down. Show me an equivalent system that's significantly cheaper, and I'll agree. The Dell is the closest by far, given the other options in the thread, and it is cheaper by a couple of hundred even though it falls short in a couple of areas and exceeds in 1. The Alienware system was the last one I just compared, and that one even didn't wind up being a slam dunk for an outright better performer since the CPU is 1 step down from the best available in the MBP, weighs twice as much and, per previous experience given the rest of the hardware specs, probably has less than 1/6th the battery life. I didn't bother double checking that.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

It's $1000 LESS than your MacBook and nearly matches specs...

It didn't come close.

It does NOT however, outclass laptops spec for spec. Period. Quit moving the goalposts.

Actually, it appears it does except for gaming laptops. That is not a reason anyone ever buys a mac today. But, you keep on trying to move the goalposts. Since the top end MBP has a faster CPU than Alienware's top end gaming rig, I'd say CPUs are at least on par with anything else out there today. Memory is limited, but that's directly due to battery life. It is a laptop, and that's one thing I've always needed in a laptop - longer battery life. SSDs in macs are absolutely top end. Laptops not running NVMe SSDs are in the buggy whip group.

The specs to match are in no particular order (and you're free to disagree, which may mean that this particular set of Apple hardware doesn't match your needs, don't buy it):

• CPU performance
• Battery life
• disk performance
• screen resolution min 2k as less is noticeable.

Memory should be mentioned only as requiring a min of 16GB. Why not more? Because I've yet to run into swapping as a problem with 16GB. It is quite possible that windows requires more than 16GB, but if running windows is a requirement for you, then Apple is obviously not your first vendor of choice.

Re: QA

[Gr8Apes]

Actually - I chose the the only screen with reasonable resolution. If Dell would sell a 2K screen, I would have chosen that. The base 1080 screen is just... unusable.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Then buy the non touchbar version. I fully concur I have no desire to get a touchbar version. I also need function keys and the ESC key is an especially fond key for me. I touch-type, a touchbar isn't going to lend itself well to what I need. So I do hope they continue offering a non-touchbar version. If they don't, I'll likely hang onto the last model that does offer normal keys and then start looking for an alternative 5 years down the road. My shortest lifespan of a mac laptop has been 5 years, I still have a 2006 MBP running and in daily use, although it's about to be replaced, not because it's broken, but because as of this year it no longer is supported by the main software used on it. Sad really, but understandable given the technical limitations of the hardware in the machine.

For ethernet, I got the T-bolt->ethernet adapter. Is it a hassle? Well, certainly more than not needing one but nothing notable. Does it work? Haven't had an issue with it in the several years I've had it, and I wish I hadn't bought the second one I keep in my bag just in case because I've never needed it. At least I got them cheap, about $15 each.

Re:QA

[vux984]

"Then buy the non touchbar version."

Sure... unless they discontinue it. Which is highly likely.

"My shortest lifespan of a mac laptop has been 5 years, I still have a 2006 MBP running and in daily use"

My old macbook pro is also still in daily use (2010ish)... but a big part of its longevity is is because I was able to add ram and replace the original 5400rpm drive with an SSD. That's a big part of the longevity proposition, and apple's newer stuff doesn't have that. If the new units are long lived its going to be in spite of apple not thanks to them.

And in general all computers are lasting a long time now. My sisters laptop, is from 2009 and its perfectly fine, and it's a dell. My HTPC tower is running Windows 1 -- we play all kinds of steam stuff on it and it runs beautifully... xcom 2 chugs a bit though. It's running 4GB RAM and a Q6600 cpu from 2007. The video card is a few years newer... GTX660. The days where a PC was in the bin after 3 years and a mac was still going strong are LONG gone. The average PC at work is 5-7 years old now, and runs fine with the work load. (Windows 7, Office 2016, POS software, industry specific stuff).

"For ethernet, I got the T-bolt->ethernet adapter."

Yeah, me too. Its a hassle to remember, and there have been multiple occasions where i didn't have it with me when it would have been handy. I'd have paid more for a model that was thicker, with more battery life, and a built-in port if one existed.

"Does it work?"

Its also kind of irritating that I can't configure ethernet when its not plugged in. But yeah, its not horrifically defective. Its just a hassle to carry the dongle everywhere. I have one in my bag too, but I've occasionally left it plugged into the last cable i used somewhere. Wifi is pretty ubiquitous, but its not universal, and wired is often **much** higher speed. Plus i program routers / switches / APs ... I realize the latter is a bit niche (albeit precisely a niche where a someone would want a pro laptop)... but "moving large files frequently" is a pretty "pro" requirement.

Mine at least has full size hdmi... which i have used in hotels, board rooms, executive lounges, private offices... the new ones dropped that too. So that would be another dongle to carry around. And no USB A... seriously apple?? WTF. Those aren't niche requirements. Maybe in 2025 or 2030 they will be like needing analog VGA, but I have to use my laptop in 2017 and in 2017 those aren't niche requirements.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

Sure... unless they discontinue it [non touchbar version]. Which is highly likely.

They hopefully learned a lesson with the mac pro. I'm willing to bet a larger proportion of the user base than Apple thinks is really attached to those keys.

My old macbook pro is also still in daily use (2010ish)... but a big part of its longevity is is because I was able to add ram and replace the original 5400rpm drive with an SSD. That's a big part of the longevity proposition, and apple's newer stuff doesn't have that. If the new units are long lived its going to be in spite of apple not thanks to them.

The newer stuff is already using hardware that is as fast and maxed out as possible. LPDDR3 is maxed out at 16GB, which is what the MBPs come with. Newer technology for bigger memory will require hardware support that will need a new logic board, at the least. I'm surprised Apple decided to solder the NVMe chips directly to the board. Hopefully that is a decision they'll reverse, or add a NVMe slot internally (ROFL - although Apple's mac pro admission shows there's a glimmer of hope when a bad decision is made).

And in general all computers are lasting a long time now. My sisters laptop, is from 2009 and its perfectly fine, and it's a dell.

She's lucky, given the lack of quality in Dell laptops. My IT guy at a previous job was seriously windows biased and had tons of Dells and quite a few Lenovos. One of the requirements I had joining was that I have a Mac. You'd think I'd asked for his first born. Within 2 years with a couple more guys coming on using macs like me, as Dells failed left and right and our work being primarily Unix based which also caused him lots of support issues on windows, but 0 on macs, he decided to try a mac. Within a week, he grudgingly admitted "it's not all bad". Within a month, he was positive enough about them to recommend we switch. Those Dells were circa 2008-2011, and the problems with them ranged across the board - memory going bad, a CPU burning up, hard disks crapping out, but the most common was batteries. Batteries lasted about 1.5 years. Yes, they're replaceable, but if you have to buy a new $100 battery at least twice in 4 years, that becomes an issue in this environment.

Wifi is pretty ubiquitous, but its not universal, and wired is often **much** higher speed.

Wireless is ALWAYS much slower, if you're not the sole device on the network.

Mine at least has full size hdmi... which i have used in hotels, board rooms, executive lounges, private offices... the new ones dropped that too. So that would be another dongle to carry around. And no USB A... seriously apple?? WTF. Those aren't niche requirements. Maybe in 2025 or 2030 they will be like needing analog VGA, but I have to use my laptop in 2017 and in 2017 those aren't niche requirements.

I agree, the USB-C only thing is a painful at this time because USB-A is ubiquitous. They could have left one.... HDMI I have never used. Everything I've needed to connect to is T-Bolt, DV, VGA or DVI.

Re:QA

[Gr8Apes]

The CPU in the Alienware is factory overclocked to 4.4GHz though. It is faster.

That would be quite a neat trick, considering the base is 2.9GHz for that CPU. Maybe they're advertising the max turbo mode? I don't know or care, really, because if they're really running that CPU at a base 4.4GHz, it'd a) be smoking hot b) be limited in life span, and c) be an indicator that the battery might last an hour. Also, I'd recommend an asbestos blanket for your lap.

Thanks for pointing that out. LPDDR3 is even slower than DDR3 making it just that much worse than DDR4. Oh and it's DOUBLE the DDR4.

And yet in performance benchmarks for things that matter - ie, real life work, LPDDR3 seems to have exactly 0 effect.

Most people don't carry their laptops everywhere with them. They tend to go in the car to and from home and work. For anything else we use our smartphones and tablets. My laptop is supposed to be a replacement for a full desktop PC, not some high price, low spec Macbook shit.

Then you are not the target audience for a MBP, so why are you commenting? The entire group of folks I deal with do take their laptops everywhere, and especially at work we move around with them. They are not desktops, but mobile work stations. The group of folks you're describing could just as well use a USB drive to transfer their work to and from their home desktop, saving themselves 9 pounds of carriage. If someone gave me an Alienware "laptop" I would sell it immediately and buy a real desktop or a replacement MBP, depending upon my needs. As for smartphones or tablets, yes, they're great to check email or do a 1 or 2 line reply, but absolutely horrible for more than that.

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

I don't care about your gaming faves, I care about mine. Sorry.

Ooh, looky here, a special snowflake with mod points was triggered.

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

No, but you can't claim that Linux is just as good as Windows then, now can you?

Oh wow, you got me! You're right. Linux is way better than Windows. Waaaaaaaaaaaay better. That's why it rules the world.

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

And for gaming, it isn't. Full stop.

Full idiot. Technically, Linux is better for games than Windows. Higher framerates, smoother update. Vulkan sealed the deal on that. You actually can run a stream and a game server at the same time without hitting oral/anal inversions like Windows gets. (Yes it's true son, check out the frequent reports of game lockups when streaming on Windows.)

There is exactly one thing that prevents some titles from getting onto Linux: illegal trustmaking activity by Microsoft. And that last bastion of Mordor is starting to crack. In the mean time, there are way more games including AAA games on Linux than I can possibly make time to play, and I don't give a fuck if your favorite game isn't there. Sorry. If you feel that strongly about it then run Windows, you deserve it.

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

...there's still lots of games which are unplayable in [either] vmware...

You're making that up.

Re:QA

[FlyHelicopters]

It doesn't rule the desktop and it never will...

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

It doesn't rule the desktop and it never will...

Oh yes it will. 1) Own the phone market 2) Own the cloud "office as a service" space 3) Cloud users adopt offline office apps running under Chrome and Firefox with V8 (compatible with cloud services and not giving a fuck about docx) 3) Microsoft shrinks and dies 4) Everybody parties and Russia can't hack

Re:QA

[FlyHelicopters]

I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brains...

Re:QA

[Tough Love]

Heh, you are a card, you are. Quit your day job, you will make it big as a comedian. As if it is not already a fact that Linux is by far the most installed and used operating system in the known universe.

Who lays off their Sales people?

[rsilvergun]

Something ain't right. Yeah, you fire folks from time to time. Maybe even whole teams. But mass layoffs in sales? And at a time when Chromebooks and Tablets are threatening market share?

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[Anonymous Coward]

The company top management forced the crappy Metro UI and insane spyware into Windows. And when sales drop, the blame is of course on salesmen. As a former Windows application software developer I can only wonder how fast the MS has managed to alienate its most loyal customers and developers. Only a five years ago the Windows was the easiest and most profitable platform to develop for, but not anymore.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[gweihir]

Indeed. I know of at least one large company (~50k employees) that will go all web-terminal before Win7 goes out of support. They looked at Win10 and decided that there was no way they would move to a platform with an ever-changing UI. Of course, all their internal stuff is already all web-apps, they just need to replace MS office with something web-based. But this is a good thing as the MS monopoly has done a huge disservice to the world.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[nukenerd]

Something ain't right..... mass layoffs in sales?

Yes, it's awful. "Microsoft", "salesforce" and "layoffs" in the same sentence! I never thought I'd see the day, you should see my tears. I'm starting a collection to support those poor guys until they can land a job in some Indian "Windows" support call centre..

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[JackieBrown]

The problem is a salesperson needs to do at least 2 things
1) Sale the product
2) Prove the sale would not have happened without them

And this does not even address the quotas and goals that companies set (then change if the goal is obtained.)

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[sydbarrett74]

they just need to replace MS office with something web-based

They could use something like rollApp, but there's the pesky problem of Outlook, which still lacks an open-source equivalent that duplicates most of its functionality. I would say Outlook is the very last strangle-hold Microsoft has on the corporate market. Every other one of its platforms (the rest of Office, SCCM, Server/Active Directory) contains more than adequate FOSS replacements.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[93 Escort Wagon]

... but there's the pesky problem of Outlook, which still lacks an open-source equivalent that duplicates most of its functionality. I would say Outlook is the very last strangle-hold Microsoft has on the corporate market.

What functionality is that, specifically? And I mean that as a serious question.

I don't see anything which Outlook does but other calendar and mail solutions do not - and I work with a lot of Outlook users. When we've talked about moving them off Outlook, there has been significant pushback... but it seems to be all about fear of change. They can't articulate anything Outlook does which other software does not also do.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[93 Escort Wagon]

because sales people clearly produce something tangible lol

You don't have to read many Slashdot comments before you realize that most tech-oriented people are going to suck when it comes to relating to customers. That's why you need sales people, who have a different skill set and - unlike the aforementioned tech folks - know how not to piss off most of the people they meet.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[Tough Love]

Something ain't right.

True. Microsoft is teh shrink. Rats jumping off. Couldn't happen to a more deserving gang of thugs.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[chuckugly]

Microsoft is all about the platform, always has been. The platform isn't just Windows now, is all.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[thegreatbob]

Their web-based stuff available for office365 and what-not is (in my opinion) not particularly terrible. I somehow doubt they could sanely cram the full feature set into a browser without making a mess.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[jon3k]

How do you manage Global Address List and Distribution Lists using something other than Exchange? Serious question because that's the one I always get stuck on when I dream of ditching Exchange.

Re:Who lays off their Sales people?

[sydbarrett74]

Primarily Outlook's large ecosystem of add-ins. Lots of line-of-business apps use such add-ins (Adobe Acrobat, Swiftpage Act!, &c.).

Work for the evil empire - get shafted ...

[gweihir]

... as soon as they do not think they need you anymore. I find it really hard to feel any kind of compassion for those that will get hit.

Re:Just like rats abandoning a sinking ship

[gweihir]

Indeed. Get a huge bonus for selling the silverware and then get out with a golden parachute. They are a force of destruction, nothing else.

Typical new fiscal year reorg

[StreamingEagle]

Microsoft reorganizes some parts of the company every year at this time. July 1st is the start of their fiscal year.

My hobo index is up

[plopez]

My hobo index is a leading, and trailing, economic indicator. I live in a small city near the railyard. The number of transients hopping off of the train seems to be at a seasonally adjusted high. As most of these people are the last to be hired and the first to be laid off the indicator is showing a slowing economy. Couple it with the demise of HP, CA, and other legacy companies and I smell a trend.

Re:My hobo index is up

[Tablizer]

The end of decades often brings a recession. We are just about due.

Finally, year of the Linux Desktop!

[filesiteguy]

With MS removing staff, it will be time for teh Linux desktop!

(insert evil laugh here)

Seriously, this is kind of normal. My MS sales reps and my TAM are all mono-focused on the Cloud and what Azure and Azure Government can do for us to leverage computing (as well as ensure future subscriptions).

They don't even mention phones or mobile devices anymore. The focus is now "how can we move your 200TB of on prem storage into Azure and get your on a subscription model."

PS: Slashdot mods, sorry about the OT introduction. I promise to be more behaved in the future.

Re:Should have used apps!

[thegreatbob]

Just double the s instead of the p!

Ass!

Re: "Layoff" is not a verb, dammit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuckoff.

Re:Think Different

[thegreatbob]

Responding indirectly to the AC that also posted... I'm on his side regarding .Net and Azure being quite alright.... but I'm stuck in a mindset where I cannot see them as anything but a desktop operating system company, and in this regard they definitely, unequivocally suck.

Re:Oh Yeah?

[thegreatbob]

I've re-read this 3 times and only just now got it. Doesn't make it not a dated, tired joke.

License simplification

[jezwel]

Maybe they've finally realised that they can get more money from corps by simplifying their license types and standardising on software subscriptions. Windows, Office, CRM, Azure, CIS. What they need next is a cost effective way to hand back perpetual licences for some temporary discounts on their enterprise subscription products.

Re:Think Different

[Tablizer]

Their .NET tools are just a honey pot with a thousand ways to lock you in

W00t!

[easyTree]

Start the layoffs with the unpaid beta testers/users !

Microsoft is reorganising...

[dddux]

to get more $ per person then they already have. It's a good thing. It means Microsoft is a bit more close to fucking off.