[psmith2.0]

Wow, I guess things really are bad out there if even this outfit is looking at this stuff.

Microsoft will slash 1,400 positions immediately, with the rest of the cuts coming by June 2010. The company also said it will freeze employees' pay in 2009.

Thursday's was the first mass job cut announcement in Microsoft's 34-year history.

I had no idea. My former brother-in-law works for them in Redmond. A young guy, he's been there about two years. According to a forwarded e-mail from his Mom a little while ago, he's "safe" (for now); there were no cuts/losses in his particular department.

So odd to read the above article, a day after all the good, positive aspects of Apple's financial reporting.

Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) also announced second-quarter net income of $4.17 billion, down 11% from a year earlier. The company reported earnings per share of 47 cents, missing analysts' estimates of 49 cents, according to a consensus compiled by Briefing.com The Redmond, Wash.-based company reported revenue of $16.63 billion for the quarter, up 2% from $16.37 billion a year earlier. The software maker said software sales, including its Vista operating system, slumped 8% on weak PC sales as well as a continued shift toward lower-priced laptop computers. Microsoft's Online Services division, which includes the online portal MSN and its online advertising sales, continued to lose money - $471 million in the quarter - even as that sector's sales were up 7% from the same quarter a year earlier.

[Yonzie]

Why the hell lay off people 18 months from now? Can't be a direct response to the financial crisis then. Major restructuring to make Win7 arrive on time maybe?

[Taskiss]

Doesn't Gates carp incessantly about the need for foreign visa increases to address the lack of employable workers?

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Yonzie Why the hell lay off people 18 months from now? Can't be a direct response to the financial crisis then. Major restructuring to make Win7 arrive on time maybe?

If anything, it seems MS suffers from 'too many chefs spoiling the pot'. It's hard to believe a company that spends 1/2 a billion a year in R&D and has thousands upon thousands of programmers on staff can be so roundly spanked by the little upstart that is Apple.

[Ryan]

A lot of corporations are just using the financial situation as cover to let go of underperforming employees. Given that Microsoft has around 90,000 employees, less than 5% of their workforce sounds like housecleaning to me.

[Moogs]

Microsoft should write a book called "How to Produce Uninspiring Marketing Campaigns"... these two doofuses have to be the worst I've seen yet. If they're relying on stuff like this to get people excited, expect more cuts in the near future.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...aspx?vindex=10

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Moogs Microsoft should write a book called "How to Produce Uninspiring Marketing Campaigns"... these two doofuses have to be the worst I've seen yet. If they're relying on stuff like this to get people excited, expect more cuts in the near future. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...aspx?vindex=10

You should check the IE8 Web Slices demo. The back of each laptop has "I'm a PC" on something that looks like a Post-It note.

[psmith2.0]

Those are the lamest videos I've ever seen. Never mind that everything seems to be a direct lift of Apple and OS X stuff, but you'd think they could find two more engaging, appealing people to tout their brand new OS.

So strange, how this company operates. These videos are about the level I'd expect from some in-house produced "Sexual Harassment and You!" HR vids you'd be made to watch if you landed a gig at Geico or Chili's.

[Partial]

Some of this is in poor taste. I feel bad for those workers. So many companies are in hiring freezes right now, too. :-(

[JohnnyTheA]

Oh my god!!! WODAI ???

[scratt]

I liked one of the quotes from SJs about this subject..

His attitude was he'd rather keep employees through the bad times because they worked so hard to find them, and integrate them into Apple, it was better in the long run.

I kind of thinks this could apply to Microsoft here because it's not like the company didn't make any money...

Obviously if you are going bust that's different, perhaps.

[Banana]

Nice thoughts, but when you have a bunch of incompetents who can program but no better than a fifth grader, do you really want to keep them around for the tough times?

(That said, I have to admit I do have a *major* gripe when company pull bullshit claiming 'hard times', 'economic turmoil', 'things are slow' when they actually mean 'you suck giant green balls; GTFO', 'We're losing money keeping you around, so out you go' or 'Your review was less than stellar. We are letting you go.' If they would be actually honest with their motives, there would be no need for second-guessing and all that office politics that comes out of euphemism-laden excuses for reduction in workforce...

*It may not actually apply to Microsoft- I just don't know enough if this is truly a hard time and they're killing two birds with one stone or something else, but it irks me no matter what...)

[bassplayinMacFiend]

I cannot believe the level of stupidity in some areas at MS. Just read this article. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245859/q...rn-to-drm.html

This guy has to be the most bone-headed person I've heard in some time, and he is leading this effort?

[scratt]

Originally Posted by Banana Nice thoughts, but when you have a bunch of incompetents who can program but no better than a fifth grader, do you really want to keep them around for the tough times?

Well Steve was talking about Apple programmers.

[Luca]

Originally Posted by Taskiss Doesn't Gates carp incessantly about the need for foreign visa increases to address the lack of employable workers?

I'm pretty sure that's a huge problem in the U.S. right now. Well, maybe not at this very moment, but long-term, it's important to be able to bring in talent from around the world.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend I cannot believe the level of stupidity in some areas at MS. Just read this article. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245859/q...rn-to-drm.html This guy has to be the most bone-headed person I've heard in some time, and he is leading this effort?

No kidding.

At the moment, to be honest with you, we don't have the functionality in-house to provide a mechanism for transferring between mobile phones and PC. We don't have that functionality available.

You're Microsoft. Write/create it! WTF else do you do? Hang out with Jerry Seinfeld all afternoon?

That's like hearing BMW or Saturn say "we don't have a way to transport our employees from one end of the facility to the other. It would be cool if someone would invent some sort of motorized vehicle with four wheels...".

There may well be people who just want to listen to the track on their mobile alone.

Who?

"I love this album/song...it's one of my all-time favorites! But I don't want to listen to it at home, with my full system and nice speakers hooked to my PC. Just on the noisy subway at 7:15am, on my mobile device and shitty earbuds...".

I don't know anyone who thinks that way.

Question: If I buy these songs on your service - and they're locked to my phone - what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time? Answer: Well, I think you know the answer to that.

Wait...do you? What the hell kind of answer is that? Is he saying "well, of course it goes with you to your new phone, don't be foolish!".

Or is this his sheepish, snarky way of admitting "well, naturally, you lose all your stuff...but please don't make me come out and say it"?



I honestly can't tell, but considering the outfit in question, my gut tells me it's the latter.

Question: Can you really expect people to buy music that's locked to a device they upgrade every 12 to 18 months? Answer:I didn't realise phones were churning that quickly in the marketplace these days.

Hugh Griffiths, Head of Mobile at Microsoft UK, isn't sure about the "churn" or trade-up/switch rate in the marketplace these days.

Isn't this sort of thing his job to know?



Is this one of the people getting laid off? Because if not, I'd like to suggest he be up for it...what good is he doing the company? He can't answer a question, he doesn't seem to know the market in which he works, he has no sound reason/explanation for why Microsoft is going back to DRM (when everyone else has finally gotten away from it).



You fold the above in with everything else (all the stuff we've talked and laughed about here over the years) and it all kinda comes together and make some sense. These guys would screw up a ham sandwich (and charge extra for the effort).

[PKIDelirium]

The Xbox division is one of the only parts of MS that's not totally brain-dead lately.

[psmith2.0]

I wish someone would compile a clear-cut, easy-to-read, bulleted list of stupid Microsoft moves, statements or products just from the past five years. It would be at least three pages, single-spaced.



Everything they touch, talk about, predict, get behind, implement, etc. turns to shit and blows up in their face. And yet there's so much entrenchment and momentum at play, they'll never "suffer" for it. My grandchildren's grandchildren will still be dealing with this crap, 75-100 years from now.

"Windows X...the future is now. We apologize for Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 Deluxe, Windows 8.5, Windows 911...but we think we've got it now. Windows X...what do you want to struggle with today?"

Puddingheads.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Don't forgot the fact the MSN music service is twice as much as the DRM-free alternatives.

Oh yea, doesn't MS have this nifty tech. called Active Sync? I've read it syncs data between a computer and a mobile device.