Extensive cuts in R&D, so... they are conceding complete failure of the company in the next decade?
More Microsoft staffers shown the door in Round 3 of job cuts
Microsoft sent another 3,000 staffers packing on Wednesday, after the third round of layoffs in CEO Satya Nadella's multi-phase restructuring program. The Seattle Times reports that 638 employees in and around Microsoft's Puget Sound headquarters lost their jobs, with the remainder coming from various sites around the globe. …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 29th October 2014 22:19 GMT Captain DaFt
"What's their R&D provided in the past decade?"
Who knows. The products that ever saw the light of day were strangled at birth by marketing; Zune, Kin, Vista, Win 8, Win RT, or aborted before reaching birth, like the tablet they killed because it wasn't 'Windowsy' enough, right before Apple cut theirs lose on the world.
Microsoft is looking more and more like the Xerox of old, innovations that don't fit the company way get quietly buried until someone else digs them up and runs with them, like the Gui interface and E-paper.
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Thursday 30th October 2014 10:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Extensive cuts in R&D"
No - they are increasing R&D. Microsoft already have one of the largest R&D spends of any company. Hence all those valuable patents that Google ignored when creating Android - so it's now a nice income stream for Microsoft...
They currently have over 40,000 patents!
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/microsofts-patent-tracker-push-transparency/
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Wednesday 29th October 2014 23:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
is funny....
...every time I see Nadella's name I keep humming Black Sabbath "War Pigs" lyrics (modified for MS employees)... Am sure he's a really nice bloke in reality with a shitty job to do!
Senior Vice Presidents gathered in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot restructuring,
Sorcerer of jobless queue construction.
In the R&D labs the employees burning,
As the Nadella machine keeps turning.
Restructuring and hatred to employees,
Poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord yeah!
Senior Management hide themselves away,
They only made the decisions.
Why should they go get fired,
They leave that all to the poor (workforce).
Yeah!
Time will tell them they are decision Blind,
Making products just for fun.
Treating workers just like pawns in chess,
Wait till their pink slip judgment day comes.
Yeah!
Now in downturn, revenue stops turning,
Ashes where the products burning.
No more Nadella's have the power,
Hand of Gates has struck the hour.
Day of judgment Gates is calling,
On their knees the Nadella's crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Jobs laughing spreads his wings.
Oh lord yeah!
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Thursday 30th October 2014 09:31 GMT Zippy's Sausage Factory
R&D cuts, labs gone, employees gone in droves... these are the actions of a company fighting for its financial life, not one with a healthy balance sheet like Microsoft's.
OK, Apple have never had an R&D department, true. But then Apple has a rather different corporate culture...
So what gives? Or is this just the typical MBA "know the cost of everything and the value of nothing" approach?
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Thursday 30th October 2014 10:29 GMT Cipher
No R&D?
"OK, Apple have never had an R&D department, true."
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Thursday 30th October 2014 10:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
"R&D cuts, labs gone"
They are actually spending more on R&D though - and they closed 1 lab in silicon valley - to move the research to the New York, Redmond, Boston and the UK.
"employees gone in droves"
About 13,000 of those let go were from Nokia though, so that's an expected rationalisation.
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Thursday 30th October 2014 10:31 GMT Unicornpiss
Why does it seem...
...to be a rite of passage for a green CEO or VP to immediately lay off a lot of the very people that got a company this far? And in such a predicable pattern usually... R&D, training, and support staff are the first to go. And if they were doing their jobs right, it sometimes appears that they were doing nothing at all, and at first it looks like a good decision, as a company will coast along with no ill effects for a while after such layoffs. Just like you can drive for a long while if you've welded your lug nuts on... until you have a flat or need to replace your tires.
The next phase of course is the panic after a year or so when a big hiring boom begins to replace all the lost talent. Of course you're getting cheaper labor at this point, but you've lost all the veteran people that know how everything works and how to get things done. Or you've outsourced work to some other company that far offsets any savings by introducing confusion, language barriers, and poor productivity and quality, essentially giving you a return on your investment of a quarter of the productivity, albeit at half the cost. I have lived through this process several times and every time there is a change of management, everything old is new again.
Lather, rinse, repeat.