Microsoft Layoffs: Let the Healing Begin
As if today’s Microsoft layoffs aren’t bad enough, some of the blogging/reporting makes matters worse, by emphasizing that more are coming. Oh yeah? May you doomsayers stub a finger on the M, S, F and T keys.
Recap: Around 5:43 a.m. PDT, CEO Steve Ballmer sent out email “Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs” to Microsoft employees announcing more layoffs.
“This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard,” Steve wrote. Believe him. Steve means it.
Microsoft announced 5,000 layoffs in January. During the conference call, Steve clearly wasn’t happy about canning anybody. The initial cuts affected 1,400 people, leaving 3,600 to follow later on. I’m sure the axe of uncertainty wasn’t good for morale.
I feel your pain. My layoff came on Thursday, April 30, but I knew trouble was brewing more than two weeks earlier, and most certainly a week before my last day. I’ve always worked—never been laid off before. I can understand both the anxiety of uncertainty about possible job loss and the shock and separation when the axe falls. My best wishes goes to everyone receiving pink slips today.
One highlight of today’s reporting is this paragraph from Steve’s cutbacks memo:
As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.
Many blogs or news stories are playing up this paragraph’s importance. Mary Jo Foley writes: “Ballmer’s layoff mail to the troops fails to rule out more cuts.” That’s the headline, by the way. She’s not alone focusing on this most negative of points.
The positive is more important here. Microsoft’s fiscal year ends on June 30. Now is the right time to make this next round of cuts—and perhaps even it’s a little late. Microsoft should want to finish all the layoffs in this fiscal year—lump all the charges together with earnings declines. Steve isn’t really saying more layoffs are coming but that Microsoft hopes these cost-cutting measures will be enough.
Layoffs now clear way for a cleaner start of fiscal 2010 on July 1. Windows 7 will release to manufacturing during first quarter (if not the last days of June). More importantly, the final layoffs will allow Microsoft’s corporate psyche to heal, as morale begins a slow but certain recovery. Remember: Layoffs are new to Microsoft. Before January, there had been none. Microsoft was a safe place to work. The threat of layoffs is bad for morale—toxin Microsoft had to clean out of its corporate body, either by excision (layoffs) or bandaging (no layoffs).
Still, the timing is strange, and I can’t fathom what the hell the PR folks were thinking—if there was even any public relations coordination. What? Did someone think that today’s release of Windows 7 Release Candidate would somehow obscure the news of layoffs? Just the opposite. The layoffs dampened the news about the RC.
Todd Bishop’s post, “Oh, right, the Windows 7 Release Candidate is also available today,” makes the point by the headline. How right he is. Todd writes:
Pink slips aren’t all Microsoft is giving out today. In what could go down as one of the most bittersweet moments in the company’s history, news of the latest job cuts was accompanied by the public availability of the Windows 7 Release Candidateone of the final big milestones for a product that has the potential to revive Microsoft’s flagship brand.
Anonymous Microsoft employee blogger Mini-Microsoft called the layoffs “Cinco de Fire-O.” That’s right, it’s May 5. Check your calendars! Mini, I hope that you’re one of the survivors.
Do you have a econolypse story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.
Hi Joe,
I wasn\’t going to say anything until I noticed a link on this page to a tweet you made: \"Regarding the Apple-Twitter rumors., bwahahaha. Apple can\’t find a better way to spend cash in a downturn?\"-Joe Wilcox
So I\’ve changed my mind and decided to say something of equal or greater ugliness about Microsoft in a following comment. (although since there are no other comments here, I\’m probably wasting my time).
Personally I am happy that Microsoft is releasing some employees.
Monopolies are incredibly inefficient and are not stable unless they are supported by the Government. It is only natural that competition is going to ‘reset’ Microsoft.
I do not feel that bad for the employees either. Their skills are being wasted and bogged down with office politics, the clever ones will go to work for innovative companies which are going to produce some really cool tech. The stupid ones who loaded up on cheap credit do not have much sympathy from me.
For the record, I have been made redundant twice, one of those was from a stagnant monopoly. Each time it felt bad but sometimes these things are good, like when new shoots form after a forest fire. I am not heartless, this is part of evolution and nature. Once I left the monopoly I felt bad because I felt like 1 year of creativity was taken from me.
Reading Mini Microsoft I can see that a lot of MSFT employees have had the same experience, they might not get as many benefits but they feel much more respected, do not have to deal with politics and get to work on cool stuff.
Who Da Punk (AKA Mini) is a manager so he is likely to be firing people rather than being fired. Amazing how he has been asking for this for years but now it arrives everyone is so upset. He is part of the problem as far as I can tell, too many Chiefs and not enough Indians.
Ballmer should be fired. Telling everyone that more cuts are to come is stupid, it demotivates the staff and forces the good ones to leave. He should have got the firings out of the way and then reassured everyone left that he has a good strategy. The problem is that he does not have a strategy other than fire everyone until revenue comes in line with costs again. I can see this dragging out for years.
I am not sure that makes me a doomsayer or not, I do not look forward to destruction but I do look forward to new shoots. That is not doom, it is great news. Why not do a blog post on how many companies have sprung up from old dead companies? Our industry sees a lot of it.
@zato – Things were going wrong way before Bill left. Remember that Longhorn and Vista were both under his watch, not to mention all of the laws that Microsoft broke whilst under his control. Bill and Steve created the industry wide hatred for Microsoft, they fueled the open source fire that is going to kill them.
Firing all the gays at microsoft would have helped preserve jobs for others. The gay cliques / nests are everywhere, and they protect one another. We need to do something about this situation. The only straight who should be fired is… Ballmer! I actually always wondered if Lisa Brummel was a lesbian? She should be fired too.
[...] perspective, layoffs are new to Microsoft, which announced the first ever of 5,000 in January. The axe fell again in May, with signs that the worst might be over. Sadly, there is another round, with perplexing timing and [...]