“Microsoft Corp. is making plans for a companywide restructuring of its marketing operations, a move that may include hundreds of job cuts, according to people familiar with the matter,” Dina Bass reports for Bloomberg. “The plans haven’t been settled and could change, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the review isn’t public… Initial steps could be announced within the next 30 days, according to one person.”
Bass reports, “The changes would eliminate overlap in job responsibilities and are designed to help the company better respond to threats from Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which are increasingly targeting Microsoft’s corporate-computing customers. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer doesn’t think the company is getting enough return on the billions it spends annually on marketing, the people said.”
“Consumer-focused technology companies like Apple are making inroads in the business world, forcing the information- technology industry to regroup. Apple will sell $10 billion worth of iPads and $9 billion of Mac computers to corporate customers this year, a 58 percent jump, Forrester Research Inc. said in a report last week,” Bass reports. “Microsoft announced its first-ever companywide firings in January 2009, a move that included more than 5,000 jobs by the time it concluded.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Time for Microsoft’s annual “reorganization.”
We can hear Balmy now:
I don’t like our strategy. I don’t like our strategy a lot.
Rearrange the deck chairs again!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Bev M.” for the heads up.]
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Ding, ding, ding goes the ahop’s alarm bells.
“Captain, sir, we’ve struck an iceberg. It’s ripped a gash 90′ long along the side of the hull below the waterline! We’re taking in water at an enormous rate. Shall I close the watertight doors?”
Captain Ballmerooney: “No need for that. Steady as she goes. Just dump a few pursers off the side of tthe ship to lighten it. We don’t need those bozos.”
“Aye, aye, sir. You there! Off the deck!”
Relax Ballmer. Apple’s not out to get you. They’re out to get everybody.
M$ has major technology problems, e.g., lousy phone and tablet OS, lousy phone, declining market share in corporate and consumer desktop, laptop, and ultra book OS. So naturally the solution is a marketing problem. Go Stevie! Go! 🙂
Its probably not fair to say they are lousy. More like they are merely adequate and 4 years too late, which simply doesn’t cut it any more.
The solution for their marketing is in opening more stores just like Apple. These stores are the driving force for MS’s success, aren’t they?
Yes!! Don’t stop until 400 MS stores are open
Make that 400 1 to be safe!
I hope Captain Balmy keeps his job. It is hard to find anyone as incompetent and delusional as Steve Ballmer. May Captain Balmy keep his job for as long as it takes.
“Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer doesn’t think the company is getting enough return on the billions it spends annually on marketing, the people said.”
If your products are useless, no amount of marketing will help.
1
They should use cartoon superheroes! That’s a proven winner!
When you have a bad product, change the marketing!
Yeah, that will work for a day or two.
Until people find out the product is still bad.
Exactly–this is why haters who say Apple’s success is 100% marketing are morons. Marketing is like a resume–if it’s good, it gets you in the door for an interview. The initial impressions and hands-on testing of a product are the interview and 3-month probation. And if it turns out a product sucks, or is too much a hassle, it’s fired (or, it’s kept around only long enough to get the user to the replacement product).
Totally agree, kenh and rastamouse, no amount of marketing is going to improve the sales of now substandard products. MS, RIM etc will continue to die until they realize this. MS would better spend their money on a total rewrite of their software and forget marketing and even research. They should give up thinking that Apple is out to get them; Apple’s focus is the customer and innovative products. I bet if you asked Cook what he thought of Microsoft, he’d say, “Who?”
This will fix the problem!!
M$ up up and away!
Microsoft spends billionsannually on marketing?!
Microsoft doesn’t get it, and this is proof. They focus should be on products, not marketing. A car dealership could have the best sales campaign of all time, but it would do no good if they were selling Trabants. Once again, Microsoft is focusing on their core incompentency.
Microsoft is not a software manufacturer so much as it is a sales and acquisition company that happens to make software on the side.
I know, fire hundreds of programers, increase the research and marketing budgets, and hire hundreds of salespeople; finally open a TicketMaster in every M$ store to give away free concert tickets to people stopping in the store on their way to buy Apple products. 🙂
Well the workers effected by this Microsoft jobs cut needn’t worry. They should be able to find a job lickity split because according to Obama, “America’s Back!”
Of course a few years ago Biden was touting the “Summer of Recovery”!
Sayin’ It and Doin’ It are two different things.
Obama quote at a Google hangout session…
“If you send me your husband’s résumé, I’d be interested in finding out exactly what’s happening right there,” he told her. “The word we’re getting is somebody in that high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away. And the H-1B should be reserved only for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field.”
http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/01/30/3699115/fort-worth-woman-talks-to-obama.html
Reminds me of that Jimmy Carter moment when a man asked him for help finding a job…
mmmm… mmm … mm…
Thank you for off topic opinion. It was too long to read. So I didn’t.
oh great. a reTardlican non sequitur in the middle of a thread about apple and microsoft. calculating iq… darn, too low to register.
Marketing is about identifying needs and determining how your products fulfill those needs.
MS marketers have yet to come to the conclusion that their products just aren’t needed anymore.
Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer doesn’t think…
Yeah, we noticed.
…the company is getting enough return on the billions it spends annually on marketing
There you go! Good old Marketing-As-Managment thinking at work. It’s not the products that could be improved! NO! It’s the marketing of course. 😯
Love IT! Love IT! Love IT!
-For as long as it takes- 😆
BTW: If you’d like a glimpse into Microsoft’s Marketing-As-Management future, look up Eastman Kodak’s current stock price… if you can find it.
Love IT! Love IT!
Maybe M$ can hire some RIMM marketing managers? 🙂