Microsoft plans to lay off 18,000 workers

[Cyborg Girl]

Apparently in big companies this is called "evolving your organization and culture."

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/pre ... ment1.aspx

Yarr, walk the plank guys! It's synergy!

*brandishes a keyboard and hoists a Jolly Roger tie*

[Sigma_Orionis]

That's a new one, the usual excuse is "increasing value for the shareholders"

From what I have read, the bulk of the layoffs will come from the cell phone business they recently acquired from Nokia. Which sadly makes sense, nobody gives a damn about Windows 8 for phones.


To think that in the glory days of Symbian, Nokia was considered a premier phone manufacturer...... the N95 was as good as an iPhone IMHO.

[Swift]

Why should the software industry be immune from the kind of stuff the rest of us have dealt with for years?

[Sigma_Orionis]

It is not, it has never been.

[Cyborg Girl]

@Swift, I didn't say it was. I don't work for MS; it's just that the degree of corporate doubletalk here blew me away.

[SciFiFisher]

Sadly, the stock price went up when they announced they were laying off people. Think about it. They are "becoming more nimble so they can be more innovative and better adapt to the cross platform environment they are competing in". And the market rewards this slash and burn response to the fact that they are losing market share by deciding that the stock is worth more not less.

[FZR1KG]

Microsoft sucks Jobs cock.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Sadly, the stock price went up when they announced they were laying off people. Think about it. They are "becoming more nimble so they can be more innovative and better adapt to the cross platform environment they are competing in". And the market rewards this slash and burn response to the fact that they are losing market share by deciding that the stock is worth more not less.

thus "increasing value for the shareholders"......

[Swift]

@Swift, I didn't say it was. I don't work for MS; it's just that the degree of corporate doubletalk here blew me away.

Really? That seems to be pretty standard. The only thing that would surprise me is honesty and straight talk.

To All Employees:

You've probably noticed but we are losing boat-loads of money and have been for some time. Sure, Windows and Office are still racking in the cash, but the whole smart phone thing has been a cluster fuck. All those big California pension funds are screaming bloody, fucking murder about the stock prices and we can't let them tank any more. So, we're going to have to fire about 18,000 of you. Sure, it will save us a lot of cash. But more than that, it will give the appearance that we are really doing something, and as we all know, in this business (and most others) appearance is more important than substance, particularly when we are talking about share holders.

I know it sucks, but we estimate that you all spend about 5% of your day "networking" on LinkedIn and Facebook anyway, so hopefully you'll find something soon.

Now, we are going to try to ax about 13,000 of you within the next couple of weeks. We'd like to be more exact than that, but we can't be, since we don't have enough people in all of HR to handle all the fraking paperwork we're going to have to go through (yeah, we've been cutting corners in all those support services for years; why did you think it takes 4 weeks to get a new desk lamp).

We'll probably get rid of another 5000 of you later in the year, but we're not sure yet. I mean who can predict how the Market is going to respond to anything, its all just a big crap shoot. I know you'll spend the next 6 months thinking you're going to be one of the 5000, so fuck corporate, I'm just going to play minesweeper all day long, and our productivity will go in the toilet, but hell, we're going to get our bonuses anyway this year, for cutting overhead, so we'll don't really care either.

If you have any questions, you can try to ask your supervisor, but they don't know any more than you, so you're really just wasting your time.

Sincerely,

The Pointy Haired Boss

[Sigma_Orionis]

Actually it would more like this:

Dear Revolting Rabble:

We fucked up, you get to pay the piper. Don't like it? suck it up. We don't care.

Screw You

The Masters of the Universe.

[SciFiFisher]

Actually it would more like this:

Dear Revolting Rabble:

We fucked up, you get to pay the piper. Don't like it? suck it up. We don't care.

Screw You

The Masters of the Universe.

Too blunt. Doesn't give the false appearance of giving a flying fuck.

[SciFiFisher]

@Swift, I didn't say it was. I don't work for MS; it's just that the degree of corporate doubletalk here blew me away.

Really? That seems to be pretty standard. The only thing that would surprise me is honesty and straight talk.

To All Employees:

You've probably noticed but we are losing boat-loads of money and have been for some time. Sure, Windows and Office are still racking in the cash, but the whole smart phone thing has been a cluster fuck. All those big California pension funds are screaming bloody, fucking murder about the stock prices and we can't let them tank any more. So, we're going to have to fire about 18,000 of you. Sure, it will save us a lot of cash. But more than that, it will give the appearance that we are really doing something, and as we all know, in this business (and most others) appearance is more important than substance, particularly when we are talking about share holders.

I know it sucks, but we estimate that you all spend about 5% of your day "networking" on LinkedIn and Facebook anyway, so hopefully you'll find something soon.

Now, we are going to try to ax about 13,000 of you within the next couple of weeks. We'd like to be more exact than that, but we can't be, since we don't have enough people in all of HR to handle all the fraking paperwork we're going to have to go through (yeah, we've been cutting corners in all those support services for years; why did you think it takes 4 weeks to get a new desk lamp).

We'll probably get rid of another 5000 of you later in the year, but we're not sure yet. I mean who can predict how the Market is going to respond to anything, its all just a big crap shoot. I know you'll spend the next 6 months thinking you're going to be one of the 5000, so fuck corporate, I'm just going to play minesweeper all day long, and our productivity will go in the toilet, but hell, we're going to get our bonuses anyway this year, for cutting overhead, so we'll don't really care either.

If you have any questions, you can try to ask your supervisor, but they don't know any more than you, so you're really just wasting your time.

Sincerely,

The Pointy Haired Boss

Too honest. Never going to happen. But, what the hell. It would be nice if they really would.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Too blunt. Doesn't give the false appearance of giving a flying fuck.

You mean that Honesty is a relative concept for these folks?

[SciFiFisher]

Too blunt. Doesn't give the false appearance of giving a flying fuck.

You mean that Honesty is a relative concept for these folks?

Shocking isn't it.

[Swift]

The only thing that would surprise me is honesty and straight talk.

Too honest. Never going to happen. But, what the hell. It would be nice if they really would.

That was exactly my point. That was the fantasy "honest" version.

[Cyborg Girl]

On a related note

http://betanews.com/2014/07/21/microsof ... evelopers/

[Swift]

On a related note

http://betanews.com/2014/07/21/microsof ... evelopers/

That's creepy, but not surprising.

I hope I can retire before the working world turns completely vile.

[FZR1KG]

"We haven’t tried any interventions yet," Begel says, "but one I’ve thought about can help absent-minded developers, such as those who just came back from lunch and aren’t paying much attention to their code. If we reduce the contrast on the display and make the fonts harder to read, the developer will be forced to apply more brainpower to read and understand the code and will be less likely to slip up as a result".

Because less accidents happen in poor lighting conditions in all other aspects of live?
Because concentrating on reading individual letters and symbols equates somehow to concentrating more on code?

I have an idea, these researchers need practical experience in working under stress. I propose throwing them into a live volcano and seeing how they perform.

[Swift]

"We haven’t tried any interventions yet," Begel says, "but one I’ve thought about can help absent-minded developers, such as those who just came back from lunch and aren’t paying much attention to their code. If we reduce the contrast on the display and make the fonts harder to read, the developer will be forced to apply more brainpower to read and understand the code and will be less likely to slip up as a result".

Because less accidents happen in poor lighting conditions in all other aspects of live?
Because concentrating on reading individual letters and symbols equates somehow to concentrating more on code?

I have an idea, these researchers need practical experience in working under stress. I propose throwing them into a live volcano and seeing how they perform.

There's the electrical stimulation method for ESP in the beginning of Ghostbusters.

[Sigma_Orionis]

You mean the one used by the Brazilian Dictatorship of the 60s?

[Cyborg Girl]

Because less accidents happen in poor lighting conditions in all other aspects of live?
Because concentrating on reading individual letters and symbols equates somehow to concentrating more on code?

I have an idea, these researchers need practical experience in working under stress. I propose throwing them into a live volcano and seeing how they perform.

I like the way you're thinking! Maybe heat stress would spark the researchers imaginations.

[Woof]

That's a new one, the usual excuse is "increasing value for the shareholders"

So that's an excuse? What do you think the real reason is?

[FZR1KG]

Hello MrWoof.
Welcome to the board.
You're not a bot or a spammer. Congrats!
Don't make me eat my words...I'll have to get very drunk.

[Sigma_Orionis]

That's a new one, the usual excuse is "increasing value for the shareholders"

So that's an excuse? What do you think the real reason is?

A) The Management of Nokia was unable to compete with Google and to a lesser extent with Apple, they dithered until the enormous Market Share they had in 2007 turned to nothing.

B) Presuming that Microsoft's huge market share in the Desktop Business was going to mean something in the Mobile Market, they wasted their only chance with them instead of turning to Google.

C) Microsoft, desperate because the only cell phone manufacturer that actually bothers to use Windows Phone is Nokia, bought their cell-phone division before it was closed by the parent business.

D) Since Microsoft is seen as a "has been" these days, due to the decline of PCs, and its mobile computing initiatives have been less than successful. They now need to show a profit so the market doesn't hate them more than usual. Since sales are slacking, they cut personnel.

Is Microsoft guilty of the fuckup of Nokia's Management? Nope,

Still, all those high level managers at Nokia, (who most probably are now working for Microsoft Mobile) FUCKED UP, and 12500 (in addition to another 24500 people laid off in 2013) from there have to pay the price.

The disaster caused by Nokia's Management was so huge that there's at least one book on the subject. And even conspiracy theories that the CEO Nokia had before it was bought was a Microsoft Plant so MS could have a phone manufacturer, like Google with Motorola's Cell Phone Business.

So: yes, "creating value for the shareholders" is an excuse. Instead of showing they have a way forward out of the mess, they resort to layoffs, which is a temp measure at best. Looks a lot like Pan American Airlines' decline and fall in the 80s. Or Borland's and Ashton-Tate's in the 90s.

[FZR1KG]

Ah, what would you know. You've only been in the business for most of your life you Spanish reject!