I wonder how many in India are to get laid off or only in US. This should torpedo any argument they make to relax immigration standards for programmers etc. but that would be expecting reasonable behavior.
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
Old joke:
How many Microsoft employees does it take to fix a lightbulb?
U.S. companies cut 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast that figures out on Jan. 9 will show a further 500,000 reduction in payrolls in December and an unemployment rate of 7 percent.
Joblessness is likely to continue to rise throughout 2009 and perhaps into 2010. “We’ll probably have a good chance of seeing unemployment hit 9 or 10 percent,” says Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund who’s now a professor at Harvard University.
Older_Wiser
· 10 months ago
From Timesonline.co.uk
10 to 17 per cent of the company's 91,000 employees worldwide. MSN, the online division, is expected to be heavily affected.
The news came as the company was forced to apologise for an embarrassing hiccup with its Zune digital music player. A bug in the device's internal clock in the original 30-gigabyte version failed to cope with the last day of the leap year and thousands of owners were left with a frozen screen on December 31.
Microsoft said in a statement that the problem would fix itself: “The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset.”
Steve Ballmer, the company's chief executive, is to speak at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which opens next week, where he is expected to release a new version of the Windows operating system. [A new buggy one?]
Microsoft's second quarter results are due on January 22.
(So, Gates wasn't able to steal Yahoo and all some employees got is a lousy layoff?)
sukabi
· 10 months ago
Gates stepped out of the running of Microsoft a couple of years ago... Ballmer is making those decisions...
Cynicor
· 10 months ago
@Older_Wiser: Gates wasn't pushing the Yahoo purchase, Ballmer was. The Zune problem was caused by bad leap year code from a driver manufacturer, not that it reflects any differently upon Microsoft. And the next version of Windows (called Windows 7) is getting a lot of praise from people who weren't hot on Vista.
@Rational: Microsoft won't be choosing by country, they would be choosing by product group. There's been discussion about whether H1B's go first, but the answer seems to be no, you can't discriminate in firing based on immigration status.
Soaplady57
· 10 months ago
Maybe people are buying more Apples. I just got a Mac Pro Airbook for Christmas and am loving it. I've had so many problems with the Microsft system in the past...I give up (crash, crash, crash.....). Not just that but all the foreign tech support. I always get a bad connection with an accent that I can barely understand. Bought a new Linksys router...same thing somebody saying they were "veddy veddy soddy." <sigh>
sukabi
· 10 months ago
This could still be a significant layoff, in the 10's of thousands, since Microsoft employs more contractors than regular employees.....
MNUSA
· 10 months ago
Bill Gates is the one who asked Congress to open the floodgates for foreign workers. Doesn't make much sense when they're laying off the workers they already have.
All Comments
This should torpedo any argument they make to relax immigration standards for programmers etc. but that would be expecting reasonable behavior.
How many Microsoft employees does it take to fix a lightbulb?
"None. They declare darkness the new standard."
U.S. companies cut 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast that figures out on Jan. 9 will show a further 500,000 reduction in payrolls in December and an unemployment rate of 7 percent.
Joblessness is likely to continue to rise throughout 2009 and perhaps into 2010. “We’ll probably have a good chance of seeing unemployment hit 9 or 10 percent,” says Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund who’s now a professor at Harvard University.
10 to 17 per cent of the company's 91,000 employees worldwide. MSN, the online division, is expected to be heavily affected.
The news came as the company was forced to apologise for an embarrassing hiccup with its Zune digital music player. A bug in the device's internal clock in the original 30-gigabyte version failed to cope with the last day of the leap year and thousands of owners were left with a frozen screen on December 31.
Microsoft said in a statement that the problem would fix itself: “The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset.”
Steve Ballmer, the company's chief executive, is to speak at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which opens next week, where he is expected to release a new version of the Windows operating system. [A new buggy one?]
Microsoft's second quarter results are due on January 22.
(So, Gates wasn't able to steal Yahoo and all some employees got is a lousy layoff?)
@Rational: Microsoft won't be choosing by country, they would be choosing by product group. There's been discussion about whether H1B's go first, but the answer seems to be no, you can't discriminate in firing based on immigration status.