Details are being pieced together about which employees were targeted by Microsoft's second round of job cuts. The company has fired the entire editorial staff of MSDN Magazine and Tech-Net magazine, MSN Direct, Response Point VoIP services, the Small Business Accelerator program, trimmed back the .NET Micro Framework product team (a great product incidentally), and cut various other jobs in marketing and advertising.
The Live Search, Office, Windows and Windows Live teams were reportedly unaffected by the layoffs, but I am hearing privately that all teams took minor hits.
In total, 5,000 people lost their jobs, and that is an unfortunate happening. Putting it in perspective, the total number of jobs being cut is nearly offset by its intention to create thousands of new positions this year for its bread-and-butter products and investments. The company has also
added over 11,200 employees to its payroll over the past two years. The 5,000 that lost their jobs yesterday represent little more than 5% of its employees worldwide. According to SEC document filings, Microsoft employed 89,809 workers worldwide as of May 31, 2008.
People are losing their jobs every day in this recession, we just don't hear about it. Let's be realistic all of you Chicken Littles out there: Microsoft's world is not ending. The company is doing what companies do during times of economic downturn, and it will come out leaner, meaner, and stronger as a result of re-evaulating its business priorities. Microsoft's missing earnings estimates for the past two quarters, and it must cut expenses for its shareholders' benefit as a publicly traded company—right or wrong.
I hope that the people who were laid off are able to find work, remain healthy and use their talents to open new doors for themselves. Whether there will be more cuts remains to be seen - Ballmer hasn't ruled it out, and I'm told there is more to come.