Microsoft plans to slash 18,000 jobs

[IDemo]

Source: CNBC

In a Thursday morning letter to his employees, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that the company would be cutting 18,000 jobs in the next year.

"We are moving now to start reducing the first 13,000 positions, and the vast majority of employees whose jobs will be eliminated will be notified over the next six months," Nadella wrote. "It's important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we are adding roles in certain other strategic areas."

Microsoft had 127,000 employees as of June 5, which would mean the company will see a headcount reduction of over 14 percent.

On Wednesday, a Finnish daily, quoting anonymous sources, reported that Microsoft is planning to cut 1,000 jobs in Finland from its mobile phone unit.

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101841913#.

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[link:http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/jul14/07-17announcement1.aspx|

[hobbit709]

1. I guess their crappy OS and overpriced software sales aren't doing well.

[Kelvin Mace]

29. They are rolling in cash

But the problem is they have an average river of cash running through their HQ daily and Wall Street demands Mississippi/Amazon-sized rivers of cash. When you don't have that, you fire enough people until you do.

[Itchinjim]

2. The persons who came up with Windows 8

better be the first to go.

[newfie11]

4. +1

[L0oniX]

23. +2

[byronius]

30. +33,282

I'm still angry.

[Yavin4]

33. They can get other work in the S&M industry

Force you to navigate their OS with a ball gag in your mouth.

[onecent]

35. I heard Windows 8 is IMPOSSIBLE and will not

buy a computer as I had planned, unless I can get a windows 7.

My brother bought one and returned it...after having it about 3 days.

[IronLionZion]

39. These assholes are ending support for Windows 7

While continuing to sell it since people want it, they will stop providing updates purely out of spite. Microcenter and Amazon still sell lots of computers running Windows 7, and some have both with the option to choose which one you want to install.

meanwhile, rival Apple often provides major OS upgrades free of charge or at a very fair price. I also got iWork completely free.

I got MS Office 2013 through work at a big discount. I don't think I would buy it at the retail price. Microsoft needs to wise up.

[Brigid]

3. 18,000, jobs!?

Holy crap!!

Oh, and guess what -- the article says Microsoft stock went up 3% with this news. Wall Street loves layoffs.

[groundloop]

5. Yep, fuck up thousands and thousand of people lives to enrichen the 1% even more

I've heard free-market worshipers claim this type of thing is only natural in the ebb and flow of economies, and that ultimately those employees will be better off blah blah blah. I've been through layoffs like that and lost pretty much everything I'd managed to save up to that point, it SUCKS. Go to college, get an engineering degree, work hard, hope and pray that you luck out in your choice of employers.

edit: And what pisses me off the most is that in most of the cases like this all those hard working employees are getting screwed over because of bad choices by upper management, who rarely suffer any consequences at all.

[quadrature]

6. how many times can MS WORD for Windows, be ''''upgraded'''' ?

does Microsoft do anything else?

[christx30]

21. You say that now, but

just wait until the next update, when Word will have "enhanced tab functionality", whatever that is.

I would have replied sooner, but my Adobe acrobat wanted to do it's 4th update of the day. My apologies.

[Trust Buster]

7. Microsoft has been lobbying Congress for years for more foreign worker visas.

They say that there's not enough qualified applicants in the U.S. While the real truth is they can employ foreign engineers for considerably less money. I bet none of their foreign Visa workers see a pink slip. Just an educated guess.

[lexx21]

14. +1000 n/t

[freebrew]

27. Well in their defense:

'qualified applicants' means working for minimum wage and not many Americans can afford to do that.
These corporations have created the problem and now want the workers to rescue the company. Typical US Corp crap. The CEO could probably afford to pay all 18000 employees out of his stock options.

If the stock price is going up, the stockholders should pay more taxes to fund these fired workers.

[greatlaurel]

34. Every time I see Microsoft whining about needing more H1-B visas in it makes me gag.

We have plenty of qualified people for those jobs, they just do not want to pay them. Your post is spot on!

[LittleGirl]

8. Good Grief

Can't seem to shake that this is going on everywhere. I know that some positions do mature over time and aren't needed but 18,000 is a huge amount. I feel sorry for those employees now. EVERY SINGLE one of them will be nervous about their job. Not a good way to build confidence for them. Sheesh.

[sulphurdunn]

9. Do not be surprised

if you hear that Microsoft has a need for more H1-B visas.

[hatrack]

10. Bingo - cueing synchronized lobbyists' whines in 3 . . . 2 . . . . 1 . . .

[IDemo]

15. Or if they take a liking to Ireland

[greatlaurel]

11. Microsoft has been in trouble for a while and Windows 8 really hit them hard.

The upper management just thought they could bludgeon customers into using appallingly bad software. Of course, upper management sat around in their plush offices telling each other how brilliant they are to come up with this clever overused plan to screw over their customers once again. No one told them it might not work so well this time. Customers do not like getting ripped off. Rich people often behave in incredibly stupid ways because they only promote people who tell them how great their ideas are and destroy anyone who has the temerity to tell them something is a really bad idea.

The reason the Gates Foundation is trying to take over public education is because they see a cash cow for their failing software business. Force privatization on students and then sell the parents the vastly overpriced and exceptionally bad education software is their plan for the future. Fortunately, some educators and parents are revolting against this massive fraud against taxpayers. This may be a sign that they are realizing their plans are falling through.

[MyNameGoesHere]

12. Are people really that dense that they think MS is in financial trouble?

Bottom line is they are making money hand over fist. Beating expectations and gaining market share across their portfolio. It ain't about 1 OS doing bad. The only story here is that they are moving in a new direction and doing it quite successfully.

[IronLionZion]

13. They have been growing through acquisition

recently acquiring Nokia. As products and projects change, the staffing gets changed as well. As a big program ends they often have layoffs. This is a big reason why IT work has been on a trend towards contracted work for the foreseeable future.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. This is only the second major layoff in MSFT's history. MSFT does not "often have layoffs".

At least not large layoffs like this. This is a big deal.

[IronLionZion]

22. "About 12,500 of the jobs being eliminated will come from the Nokia groups, resulting from the clos"

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/business/microsoft-to-cut-up-to-18000-jobs.html?_r=0

Microsoft will make the deepest cuts from the businesses it acquired from the Finnish phone maker Nokia. About 12,500 of the jobs being eliminated will come from the Nokia groups, resulting from the closing of a factory in Hungary and other changes.

That is about half the number of employees who joined Microsoft from Nokia a few months ago, when Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nokia’s mobile business. In related news, Microsoft said it would no longer make Nokia phones based on the Android operating system, switching its low-end phones to Microsoft’s Windows Phone software.

"the job cuts that the layoffs are an effort to become more agile"

“The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our work force.”

“We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes,” he wrote in the memo. “Culture change means we will do things differently.”

MSFT is no ordinary company. It has been THE unstoppable juggernaut driving the computing revolution of the last few decades. The world is changing and the rate of change is also speeding up exponentially. People don't get the multi-decade jobs that my parents had anymore. There are people who work somewhere for just a few months or a year and then switch companies.

[greatlaurel]

38. There have been many unstoppable juggernauts companies that ran themselves into the ground.

Microsoft is well on the way to doing this to themselves. Buy up the competition. start putting out substandard products, claim your are becoming more agile by slashing employees, boost stock prices at the cost of product development. It is a road map to bad business and government bailouts, just like the auto companies. Hopefully, before microsoft needs a bailout, we will have learned to let bad businesses go out of business and help the employees create new and better run companies.

[lexx21]

16. Reading the article...

Anytime a manager type uses the word "synergies", that indicates utter bullshit. It never ceases to amaze me the lengths that the overlords will use to obfuscate what they are saying with BS buzz words.

I would be willing to bet that a lot of those jobs will move to India or to South America. When I worked for IBM just about everyone that I had to deal with was located offshore. They have a HUGE campus here in RTP (in North Carolina), but it is mainly empty. Everyone has been laid off and the jobs sent overseas where they get workers for pennies on the dollar.

[Skittles]

20. I've seen it for years

having to work with people in the US and then their cheap offshore replacements I can tell you there is no comparison in quality - the standards were simply lowered, big time

[Recursion]

18. This is probably fallout from buying Nokia

There's a lot of doubled positions between the two.

[corkhead]

19. "in the next year" They must have needed a short term bump in their stock price

so the oligarch class running that outfit can cash in some of their stock options. They don't care if they fuck the Microserfs in the process.

[L0oniX]

24. Mean while the rest of us have moved on to Ubuntu.

[greatlaurel]

32. +1000!

[americannightmare]

25. Yeah, that'll keep the economy humming...

I'll never understand why Americans continue to put up with subjecting themselves to the whims and vagaries of the so-called "free market." The only time we've ever had economic growth approaching that which China has had in recent years is when the government was in the business of creating jobs. And putting people to work on infrastructure upgrades is the kind of growth that is sustainable, i.e. doesn't require destroying the earth to achieve growth (or at least it can if done right).

[IDemo]

26. MS CEO just announced - no more Android on Nokia devices

Looks like it's VistaPhone for everyone!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2014/07/17/nokia-devices-will-no-longer-support-android-says-nadella/

[mrdmk]

28. Had a Nokia Windows cell phone for about two weeks

My previous Nokia had a software issue, so I upgraded my phone. (long sad story)

Returned the phone because every hour on the hour, it was attempting to sell me something. I wanted a communication device, not a hand held advertisement that cost me a $100 per month...

[greatlaurel]

31. The final nail in the coffin for Nokia.

I hope all those Finns can find jobs elsewhere. They ought to start up a new phone company and employ all those laid off employees to make phones that will put Microsoft to shame. Nokia phones used to be incredible and last forever. Too bad about them getting bought by Microsoft.

Microsoft only knows how to make crappy software and buy out the competition. They gave up on making a superior product a very long time ago.

[arikara]

36. I still use an old nokia phone

that isn't smart in any way shape or form. I do pay as you go for $10 a month and I usually have money carried forward. I can even text... which I figured out a few years after I got it.

I'll be really sad when it doesn't work anymore, and I certainly won't replace it with something that microsoft has anything to do with.

[greatlaurel]

37. Exactly! My DD's first cell phone was a refurbished Nokia. The thing was a little tiny tank.

Last edited Thu Jul 17, 2014, 03:40 PM - Edit history (1)

It is still in a drawer here somewhere and last time I checked it still turned on. Great little phone with outstanding sound quality. Never understand how a company like that could be destroyed so quickly.