“Microsoft Corp. is planning its biggest round of job cuts in five years, as the software maker looks to slim down and integrate Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, people with knowledge of the company’s plans said,” Dina Bass reports for Bloomberg.
“The reductions — which may be unveiled as soon as this week — will probably be in areas such as Nokia and divisions of Microsoft that overlap with that business, as well as marketing and engineering, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public,” Bass reports. “The restructuring may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, two of the people said. Some details are still being worked out, two of the people said.”
“While Microsoft has undergone smaller, intermittent job cuts in individual businesses — for example trimming a few hundred positions in advertising sales and marketing in 2012 and some marketing jobs across the company earlier that same year — the company has only undertaken a companywide restructuring impacting thousands of workers once before, in 2009 at the start of the recession. Over the course of that year, the company cut 5,800 jobs, or about 5 percent of its workforce at the time,” Bass reports. “Some of the cuts will be among software testers, said one of the people.”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft tests its software?
“Microsoft is the latest technology company seeking to reduce costs by trimming jobs. Hewlett-Packard Co. in May announced more cuts after an 11th-straight quarter of declining sales,” Bass reports. “CEO Meg Whitman has said she will eliminate as many as 16,000 jobs on top of 34,000 already cut.”
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MacDailyNews Take:
When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Fewer people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy… because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we’ve embarked on that change… We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable. – Steve Jobs, June 1, 2010
Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. – Steve Jobs, June 12, 2005