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Microsoft To Lay Off Another 2,850 People In the Next 12 Months (businessinsider.com) 162

Posted by BeauHD from the gloomy-news dept.
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Business Insider: Microsoft is planning to lay off 2,850 more employees in the next 12 months or so, according to Microsoft's full 10-K report it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Part of the document reads: "In addition to the elimination of 1,850 positions that were announced in May 2016, approximately 2,850 roles globally will be reduced during the year as an extension of the earlier plan, and these actions are expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2017." Business Insider reports: "The first 1,850 layoffs mentioned here were mainly from Microsoft's struggling smartphone business, including 1,350 employees in Finland working at what was once Nokia world headquarters. These layoffs also included people in Microsoft's salesforce, which was recently reorganized and saw the departure of COO Kevin Turner. In total, Microsoft laid off 7,400 employees in its last fiscal year, which ended on June 30th, 2016. The new layoffs are a continuation of the same plan, and include the sales group as well as others. About 900 people affected by the new layoffs were already informed during the sales reorganization, according to a person familiar with Microsoft's plans."
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Microsoft To Lay Off Another 2,850 People In the Next 12 Months More

Microsoft To Lay Off Another 2,850 People In the Next 12 Months

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  • Worst Part (Score:5, Funny)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @06:30PM (#52603331)

    The severance pittance^W package is tied to an "exit interview" that involves upgrading to Windows 10.

  • Need more low cost H1B's

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Of course don't forget that M$ were at the DNC, the corporate convention to pick politicians with their cheque books, to lobby for more H1B this whilst planning those layoffs or what, redundant, cough, cough too expensive, fully trained and experienced individuals. Those ass hat corporate executives are truly shameless, in public, don't care who sees it, corruption or the democratic process to feed their greed. You reckon M$ would pull it's head in a bit after the mass invasion of privacy of Windows anal p

  • Sounds like more H1B are on their way. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kenj123 ( 658721 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @06:32PM (#52603343)
    MS must have some kind of assurance the H1B pipeline will be at full capacity for the foreseeable future.

    • Re: Sounds like more H1B are on their way. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Exactly. Slave labor.

    • Re:Sounds like more H1B are on their way. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by I75BJC ( 4590021 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @06:56PM (#52603497)
      Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have promised this for years. Only Trump and the Republicans are complaining about the loss of jobs for Americans. This is what I read and hear in the News Media.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Trump also complained that salaries are too high...

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have promised this for years.
        Only Trump and the Republicans are complaining about the loss of jobs for Americans.
        This is what I read and hear in the News Media.

        Trump is known for exaggerating and in many cases just making up crap. I've never heard of him being known for going out of his way to buy American, which might have been an indicator that his H1B stance wasn't full of it. As far as the Republicans go, well they generally support H1Bs. Some democrats do as well.

        My own opinion on H1Bs, is that they should rapidly have a path to citizenship. People that are in a country and contributing say more than 2 years should at least have all of the "right to work"

      • Only Trump and the Republicans are complaining about the loss of jobs for Americans.

        And if you think that Trump and the Republicans are going to cut back on H1-B visas, I have a very nice bridge to sell you.

      • Funny how many illegals built Trump's properties? Why didn't he hire real Americans?

        Who was the party that supported outsourcing? Who created a whole department in the White House funded by tax payers to help corporations fire Americans and replace them with foreign counterparts?

        You think protectionism and higher wages will force your boss to pay you more if they can't bring in Indians? Or will they give someone in Bangalore an AD admin account or root access to do the work there and just not bother to brin

      • Hillary Clinton and the Democrats have promised this for years.

        While this is true...

        Only Trump and the Republicans are complaining about the loss of jobs for Americans.

        ...complaining? Yes. Sincerely? Not so much. [reuters.com]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      that pipeline has a name: hillary clinton

  • to pay off all those judges & lawyers that are going to be sueing the pants off of them over the windows 10 upgrade debacle

  • Upgrade To Unemployment Dialog Box (Score:3, Funny)

    by theodp ( 442580 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @06:50PM (#52603457)

    Upgrade To Unemployment?

    1. Upgrade Now 2. Upgrade Tonight

  • Pisses me off (Score:5, Interesting)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @06:54PM (#52603483)

    Sick of seeing profitable companies laying people off like this. I'm a right to work guy normally but this is starting to really piss me off. My company did the same shit. Had a great quarter then the next day after earnings released "By the way we need to lay off 3% of staff to position us better for next quarter."

    Tech industry should really unionize. I hate unionize generally but this industry needs it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 )

      They're done with the carcass of Nokia and now they're disposing of it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by schnell ( 163007 )

      Sick of seeing profitable companies laying people off like this ...Had a great quarter then the next day after earnings released "By the way we need to lay off 3% of staff to position us better for next quarter."

      This used to mystify me as well until I actually went to work for a really, really big company. The false assumption here is that all employees/divisions/lines of business are contributing equally to the company's profitability. I will take my own giant, soulless mega-corporation as an example. Each quarter the wireless division cranks out a profit, and the legacy wireline division takes a loss. The wireline division loses customers, too. So - even though we made a profit overall, why doesn't it make sense

    • My company did the same shit. Had a great quarter then the next day after earnings released "By the way we need to lay off 3% of staff to position us better for next quarter."

      Likee this [youtube.com]?

    • Yes unionise. Keep people doing nothing around, make the company inefficient, and then everyone goes under without any severance packages at all. Brilliant idea.

      If the answer to layoffs is unionise then all your doing is giving a company cancer.

      • If the answer to layoffs is unionise then all your doing is giving a company cancer.

        I'm guessing you are in the USA. Americans seem to have a funny and bad attitude to unions - the culture is obviously a lot different from the UK, at least.

        In the corporate companies I have worked in the UK, many of the bosses themselves are in the union. I am senior enough to be regarded as a "boss" myself, and I am in favour of unions. I don't want to see workers treated like dirt whatever their level. From time-to-time in the UK a union gets too big for its boots (like the coal miners' union under Ar

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Indeed that's why the Rhine Capitalistic model was such a failure and Germany is still the third world country it was after it was destroyed by the Allies in WWII.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • pivoting (Score:5, Informative)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @07:02PM (#52603523) Journal
    They are pivoting to the cloud. Firing people who worked on non-cloud projects (mainly smartphone), hiring new ones to work on cloud projects. Incidentally, the total Microsoft workforce is ~115,000, so this is not a huge amount.

    • Incidentally, the total Microsoft workforce is ~115,000, so this is not a huge amount.

      ~2% of Microsoft's workforce seems substantial, given that they are, you know, Microsoft.

      • given that they are, you know, Microsoft.

        No, I don't know. What difference does that make?

        • No, I don't know. What difference does that make?

          It's not your mom and pop computer store up the road, where if it folds a couple of people lose their jobs. It's Microsoft, and when they lay a bunch of people off they're changing course and it affects the whole industry. It can have negative downstream effects as businesses who have [foolishly] depended on them have to change their course, as well.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Seems reasonable. (Score:4, Informative)

    by galabar ( 518411 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @07:17PM (#52603587)
    It looks like 2014 saw a large bump in employees:

    Fiscal Year Ending Head Count Net Revenue (US$) Growth Net Income (US$) Growth
    June 30, 2016 114,074 $85.32B -9% $16.79B 38%
    June 30, 2015 117,354 $93.58B 8% $12.19B -45%
    June 30, 2014 128,076 $86.83B 12% $22.07B 1%
    June 30, 2013 99,139 $77.85B 6% $21.86B 29%
    June 30, 2012 94,290 $73.72B 5% $16.98B -27%
    June 30, 2011 90,412 $69.94B 12% $23.15B 23%

    Going from 99,139 in 2013 to 114,074 in 2016 seems like it tracks better with previous growth patterns.

    http://news.microsoft.com/fact... [microsoft.com] But please don't let this change your opinion. :)

  • M$ is following a well-known path (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CAOgdin ( 984672 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @07:21PM (#52603601)

    1. They unload Win10 on the world, only partially designed, and sucker us into doing their product testing. Then, the add more and more complexity with unnecessary "features" that are mere click bait.

    2. Then, the declare it's the last of the "Windows" line (unlikely, and a stupid claim by an executive without credibility to assert it.)

    3. Now, they plan to get rid of productive employees. Why? "Bottom line" or, as Jack Welch said, early in his career at GE CEO, "the purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder return on investment." Then, two years ago, after retirement, he admits in Forbes' magazine that his was "...the dumbest idea in the world."

    4. And Microsoft is joining the cadre of companies with "great (aka overpaid) CEOs" (usually self-proclaimed) who produce poor results over the long-term (see http://www.wsj.com/articles/be... [wsj.com]).
    They're about to fall off a cliff...and they think they're on solid ground. Mark my words.

    • The notion of "last version of Windows" is just semantics. It's the same NT codebase, simply modified and upgraded a bit at a time... a new subsystem here, a new coat of paint there, etc, same as every previous Windows since 2000, or XP, if you're talking about just the consumer line. The same incremental upgrades will occur, but will stay under the Windows 10 brand, and will just be rolled out as periodic system updates, like we're seeing even now.

      All this means is that that Windows is no longer a cash c

    • . Now, they plan to get rid of productive employees.

      They said they were unloading a lot of Sales employees. Sales is not the definition of "productive". I would prefer they fire 3,000 sales people and invest in 3,000 developers who can make the products better. They should also simplify their sales process so that it's not such a nightmare to license and track your purchases. It's super easy to use the Windows Store to see what apps you own. Have you ever tried to figure out how many licenses you have of any Microsoft Software? It's next to impossib

  • So MS is basically bailing on the phone business? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @07:41PM (#52603687) Homepage Journal
    What a shock, MS is bailing on the phone business, i.e. an industry where their bully monopolistic practices were useless and they had to rely on their shitty, shitty code, interface, and business practices to compete with competitors who actually know how to make software that isn't a steaming pile of shit. Shocking! But of course, MS won't reverse course on developing shitty bug-ridden software, they have trademarks to protect after all.
    • The problem Windows Phone had was not that it was bad, it was that it wasn't disruptive or innovative. Apple's iPhone disrupted the market, Google followed their lead and years later Microsoft caught up with an operating system that would have been great had it not been so late to what had by then become a mature market. You need a feature - or set of features - that will entice users to the point they will be willing to abandon their existing applications in favor of your platform and its applications. Thi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        It was definitely late, but another big issue is that after releasing WP7 internal politic'ing stalled it for 2-years before the completely re-written WP8 was done.

      • The problem Windows Phone had was not that it was bad, it was that it wasn't disruptive or innovative.

        This is not how I saw things go down.

        Initially once upon a time there was a solid base of former CE developers very interested in windows phone. They wanted to get on board but Microsoft had to go f*** it all up.

        They locked everything down emulating the Apple walled garden, required very specific versions of windows /w hyper-v and visual studio to develop anything and made you buy a Microsoft account. They militantly insisted on a Spartan ugly interface with no customization options. UI was all based on

        • My personal opinion if Microsoft started out with feature parity and dropped the misfeatures (Fugly Metro/Silverlight, malware, Apple style lockin and lack of customization) windows phone would have a healthy market share today.

          But who is going to switch to Windows Phone? Android offerred you all that already and it's the incumbent. It was entering a mature market, you're suggesting that their problem was the imitated Apple's business model when they should have imitated Google's but I still don't see how that gives them any advantage.

          If that were true you would think we wouldn't be hearing of high profile attempts to switch to Linux desktop failing.

          There's no reason to even attempt to change, that's the point. On the rare occasion that it has happened the reason has been down to cheapness but even then the marketshare has remained pretty much f

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 )

      Their destruction of Nokia accomplished it's purpose. Maemo had so much promise that was never realized.

  • That's only 3% of their workforce. My last publicly traded corp I worked at is laying off 30,000-60,000 employees, or 20-30%. THAT is a true "bloodletting". That's not even taking into account the upcoming spin-off/merger with CSC.
  • because there aren't enough tech workers...
  • They replaced the Q&A department with end users. We already knew that.

  • Windows 10 is the best they can come up with. They have to shove it down the throats of Windows 7 users for FREE. How are they supposed to pay their staff if they are giving their latest OS away?

  • Translated: If you're a white male over 40, time to update and polish your resume; you'll need it.

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