“That might qualify as a severe layoff at smaller companies, but it appears to amount to an annual pruning in the scheme of things at Microsoft, which cut more than 5,000 jobs last year as it adjusted to the recession,” Bishop reports. “The company employed 88,596 people globally at end of June — up slightly from 88,180 in the previous quarter — and it’s expected to continue growing modestly even with the latest cuts.”
Bishop reports, “A disproportionately large number of the cuts are coming in marketing groups across the company, according to people familiar with the situation.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: May all of the affected employes find meaningful employment at an innovative, well-managed company of which they can be proud, for a change.
Excerpts from a BusinessWeek interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004:
Steve Jobs: Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.
BusinessWeek: Is this common in the industry?
Steve Jobs: Look at Microsoft — who’s running Microsoft?
BusinessWeek: Steve Ballmer.
Steve Jobs: Right, the sales guy. Case closed.
Hoist yer mugs! May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft CEO for as long at it takes!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
I’ve always wondered what all those people at MS actually do
May I be foist to hoist a boisterous hoist to da woist: Microshaft.
A.L.A.I.T!!
These people are tainted.
Anyone who worked there, has drank the kool-aid for too long.
Dig a big hole and bury them before they start to stink.
Worked for my father.
Yaaaay my push notifications ate working again
General Motors’ CEO and most of the top brass were engineers for most of its existence. In the 1970’s or so, finance backgrounds began to take over. That worked real well.
Douglas/Boeing is doing the same as GM (and they’re prominent in the Seattle area too). Boeing’s “Dreamliner” (787) is three years late; the latest version of the 747 (Dash 8) is well over a year late – must be using Redmond’s products.
Finance/sales “guys” don’t exactly run things well (see Goldman Sachs, Brown Brothers Harriman, and Wall St. in general).
I love that interview snippet. It never gets old. Some people have the knack of cutting through the B.S. and focusing on the core issues. Those people, in the right situations, are hailed as innovators and visionaries. These people see beyond to how things can and should be, and then drive themselves and everyone else to reach that future.
This type of person is not always personable or likable because are not generally willing to put up with BS or with distractions or deviations from their vision. But they change things…1984.
“I like our layoff strategy. I like it a lot.”
SIDAGTMBTTS
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=:~)
@Connor Macbook –
I often wonder what people in the corporate world do. Period.
I work in education, and while we have our nice long holidays, we bust our humps every hour of the day when we work – plus grading and planning at home. A friend of mine in advertising sales does real work about three hours a day. The rest of the time, it’s luncheons, sitting in on ads being recorded despite the fact that there’s professional recording people there doing the work, driving to and fro while stopping for coffee, attending promotional concerts. No salary, all commission, so yes, sales are crucial and there’s some (yuck) cold-calling, but she rakes in a very healthy six figures for selling ad space on bulletin boards and radio stations.
Years ago I read an article which I wish I’d kept; it was in our local paper and written by a former CEO of a national but locally-based Twin Cities company. This was back in the early 2000’s when the issue of CEO compensation was becoming a hot topic. He wrote what his typical day was as a CEO: in by eight, read various reports generated for him by assistants and v.p.’s, break for a coffee meeting with someone and discuss some initiative or other, go to lunch with a board member or colleague from another company, come back and meet with a department, read more reports and the WSJ for the rest of the afternoon, and go home at 4:30 or 5:00. Literally, that was it. His point was that most CEO’s just are not worth the vast amounts of cash being thrown at them.
Anyone else have feelings about the worth of business workers? I’d like to hear from someone who has a different view.
It doesn’t matter if Ballmer remains head of MSFT any longer. Any replacement will require at least a year to reorganize into an innovative product focused Company. Then it will take at least as long to introduce their first post-Gates/Ballmer product. That’s 4 years minimum, maybe five.
In five years MSFT will require another five to become meaningful again.
MSFT will continue to sell tons of product during this time (just because of it’s sheer size), but importantly, nobody will be looking to them for technology leadership anymore
@ jimjonesjr
Wow, that was nice.
@ Follower
LOL. Nice.
The most important “job” of a CEO is to bring focus to the vision, then herd everyone in the same direction. Think in terms of a cowboy on a cattle ranch. He rides a horse all day long. An activity the rest of us pay to do during vacations.
But if he didn’t have the ability to shepherd cows to market we’d all be vegetarians.
Look at the difference in leadership at Apple, Google, Yahoo, etc to that of MSFT, Realnetworks, Adobe, Dell and a host of others.
Leadership such as that provided by Jobs at Apple is extremely rare. Boards are willing to pay big bucks in hopes that their candidate has the “it” factor. It doesn’t always work out as hoped for.
The CEO described above didn’t have “it” and was able to survive because the Board was satisfied with maintaining the status quo (read that as continuing to get Board member pay/perks) without bleeding the golden goose to death.
Hey, I did not make them drink it! Well maybe I did but they
were all down there dancing and singing and letting my father molest their children, it was nuts. Lucky for me, I was the last man standing, literally. I came back to the US and now I am a starting a new church. This one uses meth to lurer and keep my followers.
Its called the Church of the Open Facial Sore.
JJJR
@ jimjonesjr
I heard you went and hid in the jungle with the rest of the scared little children. Good luck carrying on your father’s good work.
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Reality has come to Redmond. For decades they wouldn’t discontinue money-losing products, so as not to admit any defeat. But they’re finally axing a few things, most recently the Kin. From pay freezes and cuts by attrition, they’re moving to actual lay-offs.
This is not just Ballmer. Gates never knew the first thing about technology either. Microsoft was built by opportunistic theft, predatory partnership agreements and contracts, and monopolistic abuse. Against the visionary genius of Steve Jobs & Co, they could not last.
Unreported, however, is the happy discovery by the laid off Microsoftians that their reflections in mirrors have reappeared and that the collective savings generated by their families no longer having to buy garlic necklaces surpasses the GDP of Saskatchewan.
@ChrissyOne
God Bless you Chrissy, the truth is I did hide in the jungle under the
bodies of the dead children. My Bad ! Remember never drink the kool-aid even with a gun to your head, either way it will not end well.
Run to the jungle.
JJJR
They need to shutdown the 4 empty retail stores and layoff the staff.
@ jimjonesjr
I’ll do you one better. Don’t join a church in the first place.
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“But if he didn’t have the ability to shepherd cows to market we’d all be vegetarians. …”
Shepherds herd sheep. Cowboys herd cattle. And only steers, as cows are back at the ranch producing milk and calves.
And so the slow death of Microsoft continues…
“part of the strategic realignment that the company traditionally makes at the beginning of its fiscal year”
Bullshite. In hindsight this will be seen as the SECOND Microsoft Death Throw, after the burial of the ‘Kin’.
As Petey notes: Death in slow motion…