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Microsoft announces biggest ever job cuts, 18,000 in the next year (12,500 Nokia)
- Thread starter itsgreen
- Start date
Gunmonkey36
Member
Ha... Im sure the view up there on your moral high horse is nice but a business doesn't keep assets that are no longer useful. The people being cut are not profitable for the company. A decent analogy would be a car manufacture continuing to put cassette tape readers in there car this year. The company is still going to make money off the sale of the car but the cassette player costs them money to put in each car and customers don't care about it/ may even actively dislike it.
Its unfortunate that people are losing their jobs sure, but expecting a company to keep a non profitable branch of people is a bit absurd.
You forgot to mention the last part of the story, where Elop walks away from Nokia with 18,8 million as a bonus and then he goes back to MS becoming Vice President of Devices & Services Unit.
CheDominik
Member
That's a terrible analogy and I hope you know it. Cassette decks are not people.
ethomaz
Banned
This is sad but it is how the industry works.
Overall bad news = amazing news for shareholders lol
That's not some kind of law you know. I know we've all been trained by Gordon Gekko, Jack Welch and CNBC to worship profits above all else, but corporations are free to behave as they see fit.
justsomeguy
Member
Jesus. What a day.
Any news about your situation? Must be a scary ass time to be working at Microsoft right now.
You mean, thanks to this news... you know, shareholders are always happier when CEOs announce job cuts...
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Actually, everything that has changed with Xbox lately has been a direct result of what Sony was doing against them, and had nothing to do with Apple/Google which you could say were the source of inspiration for the original XB1 vision that completely backfired. They very much follow/snipe at each other on the gaming front. It seems to still be somewhat an insular group in the company and I too doubt it will be affected by these layoffs much.
justsomeguy
Member
Nope not yet. There's more I could say about how I see things, but best I keep schtum for now. Horrible thing to have to go through, you're right.
Damn, good luck to you and anyone else possibly affected by this.
Kabuki Quantum Lover
Member
Just want to chime in by saying Stephen Elop is a piece of human garbage and reeks of the Ballmer regime.
fastballspecial
Member
They NEED a bigger piece of the tablet pie. Yeah. Right.
Why does every company have to a piece of every pie that ever exists? Microsoft should probably feel okay about not owning the tablet space. They're already behind the eight ball in a big way.
Give up the ghost and move on.
Why does every company have to a piece of every pie that ever exists? Microsoft should probably feel okay about not owning the tablet space. They're already behind the eight ball in a big way.
Give up the ghost and move on.
Interfectum
Member
So basically MSFT fired an employee for every $1 000 he got?
R.I.P. Nokia.
You faced the MS way to make money.
Terrible news for 18k guys
Oh, c'mon. MS is not the only company giving people the chance to find other possibilities.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Holy shit. That's a massive amount of people. That's more than 10% of Microsoft. I wonder what's going down. This is a big deal.
All according to keikaku.
The fact that this fuckbag was ever allowed to join Nokia in the most blatant corporate takeover in the history of capitalism is still stupefying.
I seriously think that the FBI (or any other entity who's job is to stop criminal operations like this) should investigate this because not only it's so fucking ridiculuos, but also because it was obivious that he was on a mission when he joined Nokia as a CEO to make the company dissapear under MSFT umbrella.
- Going with Windows Mobile OS was dumb, and not the best decision to make, and not even in the interest of Nokia.
- Sure they got a big shunk of money, but it was a short term move that predicted nokia's death.
- Killing Simbian so early and the way the did (announcing that the plateform is like irrelevant years before the "planned" end of support) can't be made by someone at that level of an organisation as big as Nokia who should have some notions from economics 101
- Guy drags down the value of the company with all above mentioned decisions, sells it to his former employer, gets an $18M bonus and joins back his former employer, the same who bought Nokia
Americanmushroom
Banned
Maybe it's a bit premature but Microsoft should definitely see Amazon as a serious competitor aswell.
Actually it's less. Nokia is a huge amount of the cut. Considering only MS it's about 5%.
TitusGroan
Banned
This right here is corporate buzzword double-speak bollocks of the worst kind. I was kind of interested to learn more about Nadella before he took the role. Now it just sounds like he's the same corporate overlord, spouting the same meaningless corporate platitudes as Microsoft has had before.
If you're going to lay off people, just be honest about it. This pseudo-intellectual corporate philosophical psychobabble is just painful to read, and I'm not even one of the people being laid off.
They already do. In terms of cloud services at least.
Diddy Kong
Banned
A damn shame. Best wishes to those affected.
down 2 orth
Member
More consolidation in industries that access our personal information. We're going to be telling our grandchildren some day that we all used to live in democracies.
StalkerUKCG
Banned
Because those 6000 have likely been replaced by more qualified Nokia staff
Americanmushroom
Banned
Maybe it's a bit premature but Microsoft should definitely see Amazon as a serious competitor aswell.
I think that if MS wants to focus on mobile and tablet they should scrap the whole Metro UI. Even if it's good, people see it as bad. I sell computers for a living. Most casuals still ask for Windows 7 and dont want that 'squary tiles Ui' cause they heard its bad. And they just dont find ot sexy. MS should just fucking scrap that design instead of putting it on everything (even XBOne i think sold less because people see the tiles on it). People just dońt like it and paying so much trainers and sellers will cost more than remake that UI from the ground up... I think...
I think that if MS wants to focus on mobile and tablet they should scrap the whole Metro UI. Even if it's good, people see it as bad. I sell computers for a living. Most casuals still ask for Windows 7 and dont want that 'squary tiles Ui' cause they heard its bad. And they just dont find ot sexy. MS should just fucking scrap that design instead of putting it on everything (even XBOne i think sold less because people see the tiles on it). People just dońt like it and paying so much trainers and sellers will cost more than remake that UI from the ground up... I think...
Shalashaska161
Member
Damn, that's like a small city worth of people. Good luck to everyone whose been affected.
Disagree on this. Elop was picked by the board of directors at Nokia. And I honestly believe that if MS didn't keep Nokia afloat, and force them to get rid of Symbian, the layoffs at Nokia would have been far far greater.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Fair is what is written in the laws, so yes it is completely fair. I did not say that it is wrong of them to operate only in terms of profits == good and losses == bad and have no morality that does not conform to those two principles. We can then split hairs on short term vs long term profitability, but it does not change things much.
We, citizens, politicians, the general public have other responsibilities and whether they align with what corporations feel like doing or not is not in and of itself the end of the story.
Corporations might exist only to care about profits and it is fine, the state/general public should hold on dearly to a properly functioning civil law system, punitive damages, ,smashing trusts and cartels, and to wielding incentives, tax breaks, and regulations as a carrot and stick system to help protect the public's best interests. Strong corporations and strong consumer protection laws
.You can't blame shareholders for thinking profit is the result of fewer workers needlessly taking away a company's money, after all, their wealth likely bears no relation to labor.
Run-M-Run
Member
This. Guy is a criminal in my books.
New CEO, and MS's acquisition of grew it's employee base by almost 1/4th.
ethomaz
Banned
Agreed. I understand the need to make tough decisions, but try your best to sound like a human being when you do it. This letter and the strategy letter both sound like they were written by a robot who's two classes into an MBA. "I synthesized our strategic direction" indeed.
DC1
Member
Not always the case man.
Compensation, time and political association all play a part.
I wish that it was always best (truly) best person for the job.
Human prespective lends to misjudgments.
He is the CEO, of course he will speak like a suit.
His overall strategy makes sense according to that memo, and if implemented, MS can make significant improvements.
Sometimes you need to "trim the fat" to get where you want to get.
