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Microsoft to Lay Off 7,800 Employees 'Primarily' in its Phone Business

I mainly bought my Lumia 920 as a holdover before the next Jolla phone because I had bad experiences with Android and iPhones are not only badly overpriced, they're so locked down from a software perspective that as a programmer I simply can't stand it. Been genuinely loving it since and genuinely saddened by hearing these news.

To make it even worse I'm supposed to graduate with a master's in Computer Engineering this autumn (working on my master's thesis paper right now with the project 95% complete) and continued on after getting my bachelor's mainly because I knew Nokia layoffs would flood the market with people much more experienced than me and ready to have modest salary demands because they have families to support.

Well that's just great then... I've heard there's a lot of work specially for Swedish speakers like myself in northern Sweden because most Swedes themselves want to live down south, so I might have to follow trough with my backup plan in that regard.
 
AppleInLVX said:
No kidding. Those poor people. It's the thing I hate most about working for "The Man". You're not even human anymore. You're a 'resource' and if the money isn't there, you can go starve in a ditch for all anyone at your company gives a rat's ass.
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So should everyone just band together and give free money to someone who's not producing something that anyone wants? Perhaps a job at the Kremlin is more your speed.
 
Codestud said:
OK then, if it's strict technical accuracy you want, then it's a duopoly. My main point was about the lack of competition not being good for consumers, which is still valid.
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Apple and Google definitely dominate the space, but not monopolize it. There's a huge difference. In terms of competition, the same could be said for the past 15 years about Microsoft Windows (which is in fact a company that monopolized) having very little competition, but not because it was so great, it was because Gates all but paid the world to use it. So he dominated the space and created a monopoly to maintain it.

Honestly, I'm done with Windows and Microsoft land and it's only fair to see other companies dominate the space with great products, but I will say this, the lack of competition in the phone space (in terms of Microsoft's part) is 100% Microsoft's fault.
This is not about you per say, but I have to wonder about all the people here that are backing Microsoft or feeling bad about this situation for them, how many of them are using iPhones or Android phones and/or do they use Windows Phone? If they're not using Windows Phone then they are part of the cause for Microsoft's layoffs.
 
Saucesome2000 said:
It is a shame that there is not a viable third OS that can help increase the competition.
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There is a viable third OS, it's called Ubuntu phone. You folks in the USA in your pursuit of the latest and greatest and fastest do not realize there are a billion users waiting for the phone they can dock and use as a computer. Their criteria is it must be affordable, and it just needs to work.

There is no money outside the G-20 for people to buy both a computer and a smartphone. And soon for many in the G-20 as well.

The A-7 chip was called desktop class. The technology is here, it's just that apple and Microsoft and Intel don't want to cut their own throats by introducing it. The iPhone 4S is more smartphone than 90% of the world needs for the next 5 years. But living in a country where you cannot walk into a retail store and test drive a Linux machine, what I am writing about is invisible to you.
 
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Basically all they needed to do was to beg (and maybe bribe..) Spotify, Facebook and Instagram to release their apps back in the day and they would have got their marketshare from the start.. They had nice hardware, nice looking ui but no apps and didn´t really seem to understand how much it was hurting them. Non of the people you need to adopt your new Phone OS will buy it if it´s lacking the 3 most popular apps these people will be using all day long..

Even the best camera is still a weak selling point when you can't share the photos on the most popular apps..
 
It really is a two-company battle. All we need is the free and open Android, and the closed but slightly more secure iOS. I can imagine it won't be long until Windows Mobile is just a themed Android OS with their own tech (Cortana etc) built in.

I like how their OS looks. Before getting an iPhone my girlfriend had a MS phone, the panel layout was great for viewing lots of info at once. Something I wish iOS had (and yes, those things can use up more battery, so why not put a higher capacity battery in to compensate).
 
FSMBP said:
I wish Microsoft's Windows Phones were successful. They came out in 2010 with a modern UI before iOS or Android. They integrate with PCs very nicely & they are responsive devices.

I feel like if it was Microsoft vs. Apple on the phone business, Apple would be further pushed to dominate/innovate in software (just like Apple did with Mac OS X in the early/mid 2000s).
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One difference is that Apple always remained in second place (in consumer-facing computers, ie, excluding all Unix/Linux server and workstation use). With Windows Phone, Microsoft is in third place.
 
Kaibelf said:
So should everyone just band together and give free money to someone who's not producing something that anyone wants? Perhaps a job at the Kremlin is more your speed.
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Oh cmon... Enough with the laizze faire capitalist BS. We know, we know, why pay people living wages when the CEO and hedge fund managers can pocket another tax free eleventy billion? Can't have enough yachts, helicopters, and spaceships....right?

Why do layoffs NEVER include the immensely overpaid stiffs that run these companies? That's what I'd like to know.
 
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The worst thing is that if nokia had dropped their stupid OS and sold android phones they'd still be in business.

Microsoft killed Nokia by making them sell phones with windows on. Such a shame to see so many people loose their jobs because the owners wanted a payout.

I feel really sorry for them all. I wish them the best. It's gonna be blackberry next that disappears.

It does feel odd that these huge companies can't make it work when there are only a few players in the market anyway. I know there is a lot of competition but it's like if you don't have massive sales figures you can't even stay in the game for that long anymore.
 
diddl14 said:
Wow. That's a sad ending of the Nokia legacy. These guys made great phones..
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It was sadder 7 years ago, at a time when people remembered their name and they had any measure of a chance, seeing them decline and waste away without the proper attention.
This is just burying the body instead of farcically propping it up, "Weekend at Bernie's"-style.
 
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Ugh. Can't they just put the Danger team in charge of phones? I'd love to see the next HipTop made with Microsoft's resources behind it.
 
Saucesome2000 said:
Not to get into a political argument, but what would you do if you ran the company? Would you seriously keep paying these people after you shut down this area of the business and had nothing for them to do just to be nice?
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Not to get into a political argument either, but Microsoft's CEO made $84.3 million last year, and was the 2nd highest paid CEO in the world.
That's approximately 85 times what he average middle class American earn in their lifetime. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what's wrong in this picture.
 
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Wow that was some almost incomprehensible corporate blather. But yes it is too bad this has not worked out - always bad when such a large number of people lose their jobs. I find it odd that a company with the resources of MS can't seem to come up with anything new or worthwhile in the phone arena. I guess their culture is just too broken to do anything truly innovative.
 
Windows 10 Mobile looks fantastic IMO Infact I think I like the look of it more than even android or IOS,I also love the concept they displayed the other money about when you plug it into a screen It becomes a Desktop OS, That feature will be amazing IMO.

The only problem right now is Applications, However the Universal apps will hopfeully pick up when more corporations and consumers move to windows 10.

It's sad these people all lost their jobs and I find it disgusting it has happened, they bought the companty for **** loads of money and have simply gutted it. The Buy makes Zero sense.

I'm hoping they still release Surface Pro's because they have hardware on par with Apple IMO, and their mobiles are great.
 
FSMBP said:
I wish Microsoft's Windows Phones were successful. They came out in 2010 with a modern UI before iOS or Android. They integrate with PCs very nicely & they are responsive devices.

I feel like if it was Microsoft vs. Apple on the phone business, Apple would be further pushed to dominate/innovate in software (just like Apple did with Mac OS X in the early/mid 2000s).
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Interesting - so you're saying the the iPhone 4 and iPad from 2010 or the Samsung Galaxy S were not modern phone OSes compared to the first Windows Phone?
 
s2mikey said:
Oh cmon... Enough with the laizze faire capitalist BS. We know, we know, why pay people living wages when the CEO and hedge fund managers can pocket another tax free eleventy billion? Can't have enough yachts, helicopters, and spaceships....right?

Why do layoffs NEVER include the immensely overpaid stiffs that run these companies? That's what I'd like to know.
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While I agree with you 100% on the ecnomic ideology part,

in this case, Elop was "let go" about a week or two ago. so he didn't really... get away on this one. it was publicised that he chose to leave, but, what was said, done behind closed doors is never going to be known

Given that he left, and 2 weeks later his department and the reason he was there is shut down, leads me to believe it was all planned by Microsoft.

Sadya Natel is probably the First CEO i've seen in a tech company with a good head on his shoulders. What he's doing at Microsoft is very promising.
 
Over at Paul Thurrott's site people are really having a go at Satya Nadella. I'm not sure why. They're angry at Nadella for supposedly moving away from consumer but when has Microsoft ever really been a consumer company? To me they've always been more successful in the enterprise which then trickled down to consumers.

Ballmer's "Devices and Services" strategy was trying to go after Apple which was the wrong approach. The way Microsoft gets to consumers is through the enterprise. What did Microsoft do to try and stop the rise of BYOD? Nothing. They should have been pushing Surface to CIOs as lifecycle replacements for crappy Dells and HPs. and make a really great business phone that seamlessly integrates with Surface and the corporate environment. Reorganizing the company to try and make it more like Apple was a mistake.
 
yeah Rogi,

people are going to be angry cause 7800 jobs lost will hurt. People are going to hurt for this and they need someone to point the finger at.

But I do agree, Nadella is doing a good job at undoing the mess that Ballmer was doing. he was chasing markets he didn't understand. He let quality control slip tremendously in many product categories and he seemed to want to make Microsoft into some hybrid combination of business practices by both Google and Apple (Goopple?)

Microsoft was still a very very profitable company under him, but many people (people in the know from Microsoft) believe they could be where Apple is today if it weren't for him
 
AppleInLVX said:
, companies have become far more skewed and heartless in recent decades. I think that in a company the size of Microsoft, there's probably a little leeway when it comes to reassignment of talented people. I don't think that laying of 7K+ people is necessary. I've seen it time and again where a company has layoffs one month, and hires the next. They don't hire as many as were laid off, but they do find roles for people. Why not invest some energy into minimizing that turnaround? Further to that, why not give the employees some say? Maybe some would leave willingly to pursue other things leaving roles open for those who want to stay or would be hurt by leaving.
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its an unfortunate practice that kind of has to be done.

Foreseeable problem with just, re-assigning from within, is how do you determine which of those 7800 get what jobs? what if you only have room for 3,000 of those. and 6,000 are technically qualified? how do you avoid the arguments of nepotism or favouritism? Or perhaps accusations of something more evil and nefarious, for those particular 3k to keep their jobs while everyone else is let go?

its not the easiest, nor cheapest prospect, but firing all of them, and then making them re-apply for other jobs through the open market, helps alleviate that, at least a little.

it also lets those departments choose who they think is a best fit from those candidates, instead of arbitrarily assigning someone just because they're already employed in another department.

it sucks. And I wish that in the first place nobody had to get fired. But I do see why corporations go through this process.
 
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