Microsoft Layoff 2009 - Now What?
22 January 2009: here we are at Microsoft: realigning resources and reducing costs. And laying people off. The day that has been rumored for a month now has come. And the staff reductions I've been wanting since starting this blog back in 2004 are here, though within an economic context I certainly Do Not Want. I wanted intelligent, well-thought-out leadership to have seen long ago that we've doubled our ranks far too fast and exceeded our ranks beyond what we can sustain (let alone need). Yet here we are now, in the choppy waters of the global economic crisis, being reactive rather than opportunistic.
Microsoft should be better than this.
This will start as a short post to kick off the biggest event at Microsoft that I can remember: severe cut-backs and staff reductions.
Initial coverage:
- Microsoft Reports Second-Quarter Results Modest revenue growth despite difficult economy; announces cost management initiatives.
- Steve Ballmers Entire Memo to the Microsoft Troops About Layoffs and Weak Results Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance
- Tech Trader Daily - Barron’s Online Microsoft FY Q2 Misses; Cutting 5,000 Jobs; Stock Slides
- Microsoft to cut 5,000 jobs All about Microsoft ZDNet.com
- Microsoft says it will slash 5,000 jobs
- Microsoft Pri0 Microsoft cutting 1,400 jobs today; up to 5,000 in next 18 months as recession hits harder Seattle Times Newspaper Blog
Some quick, shallow impressions:
- Not much is getting done today and tomorrow.
- 1,400 gone today (Who? It's a drop in the bucket) and now we have the remaining 3,600 hanging over our head during the next 18 months - what does that mean? I assume at this point that it means aggressive performance management is the rule over, and over again for each MYCD and annual review from here on.
- No raises as part of the annual review this year.
- No SPSA payout? No details there.
- Travel and contingent staff cuts. Very sensible and already in progress.
- Building expansion cut backs that Mr. Tartakoff at the Seattle P-I has already taken an early preview of.
- An outplacement center will be established. And hey, "some of you" may find jobs internally (good luck with the rush - I do hope over this past month you're already ahead of the game if affected) and there will be a severance package for the rest.
- The conference call this afternoon will include Steve Ballmer. And we have our Town Hall Friday morning. What questions do you hope get asked to Mr. Ballmer as part of this staffing reduction?
- Don't go asking your manager many questions today: this is news to 99% of us.
- Dang, sometimes anonymous comments can be truthful in what they share.
Administrivia: moderation turned off in the near term - note that I will delete:
- Comments I wouldn't have approved in the first place.
- Comments that quote comments I wouldn't have approved - so don't have a great comment that goes and spends a little time quoting an offensive comment because I'll have to blow the whole thing away.
629 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 629 Newer› Newest»Not a good day for Windows games: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981
"The engineering process at Microsoft is broken. Prior to MS I was a developer. In ten years at MS I have been a technical program manager shipping so great online services. The problem I notice since day 1 and continue to notice today is the challenge to accomplish anything. I am continually underwhelmed by the time it takes development to code and astonished when my test counterparts find any defect that is not trival. Yet, we spend months documenting processes, designs, test cases, that are never read nor headed."
The development process at MS surprised me as well. The whole design, develop, test plan they have laid out sounds good on paper, but is often too cumbersome in practice. I remember working on the smallest UI changes that took well over a month to implement due to mandatory "process". This is why everything goes so slowly there.
MS has the smartest engineers I've ever worked with in my life, but something about the process has to change. Their genius is being stifled IMO.
"To be honest, I'm of the opinion that mini is largely responsible for what happened today."
Right, blame Mini. Look, the recession was caused by Wall Street, not Mini. Management underestimated it, not Mini. They blew the forecast, not Mini. They decided to ignore their obligation to pre-warn investors, not Mini. And they decided to withhold forward guidance for the first time, not Mini. That is what's largely responsible for what happened today. Throw in an extra whack because those results differ so greatly from competitors reporting so far. The layoffs, as painful for those affected as they are, are minimal really. And again management's decision, not Mini's. The stock would have gotten hurt even more had we announced everything above, including the major decrease in our business and outlook, with no layoffs. Just because Steve doesn't have the guts to take some personal accountability, doesn't mean you should confuse where blame lies.
Two Words: Potato Forks
How many jobs could be saved if we drop this silly gesture toward the environment?
Or how about all the holiday parties we had just last month?
I just joined PFE last year - my utilization has been low due to training/trying to get accredited. Is there a chance that my position is at risk. Any news if PFE is going to be affected later on when second round of cuts happen.
Sigh, first:
They took our jerbs!
I loled. Second:
After a couple of months, I noticed Joe was getting more quiet and depressed. He had a large ego like most collegiate superstars who get a spot at MS (at least in those days), but that was fading quick. The last thing I heard from Joe was when he very quietly told me he was leaving the company. Didn't have any real plans, just was going to leave. In less than two years more than half of this team turned into Joe's and quit - none quit to new positions immediately - some went to hang out with friends, some back home to their parents, and one simply started smoking lots of dope. The most talented young dev on the team went to test, but stayed at MS.
I assume you were the one who was fired and sat around smoking weed all day? Would explain such a long and pointless comment. Third:
Can the 80% trolls here please eat shit and die, I've seen more than enough of the regular "Microsoft is doomed and failing in every department, get out while you can, oh by the way I worked there for 15 years" bullshit. You want to troll, do it in the MMORPG you spend the majority of your sad excuse for a life in.
Guess what - LOTS of companies cut employees over a timeframe. Its not Ballmers incompetence. If you think that you're at risk, then you know yourself that you aren't doing something right. Step up and work, stop arguing about rumors and whether SteveB is this or that because he announced the company's layoff, and do something about it by securing your job with good work. Shit happens, and it just happened to the economy, so grow up and live with it.
Ballmer should be first to go. He and his sychophants have created in his reign an atmosphere of fear that has destroyed our sense of innovation, risk-taking, and collaboration. And billions in shareholder value.
Love Microsoft, but it's over.
>>Correct me if I am wrong - a H1B cannot receive any type of job description change. They are "stuck" with their current job description until they get a Green Card. Even though they can get merit increases, they cannot get a promotion (new title, new duties). M$ saves money this way.
I'll correct you - you're wrong. H1B folks can also change company - in the same area - after the law was changed a few years ago. I have a GC now, was on an H1B, and didn't have the issues you describe, due to the vagueness of the term software engineer. I know it might be comforting to whine about "foreigners taking our jobs because of low pay", but it is just is not true at Microsoft, and it's illegal anywhere.
fuck 'em... burp... i got laid off like the rest of you, from microsoft!
lol what this obsession with H1b workers.. it makes good economic sense for US as nation to allow H1Bs.
Now these workers pay US taxes.
In the abscence of H1B, the jobs are going to be outsourced to India/China where the same amount of work can be done for 1/5th the cost..
The MS employees that I met who were upset with H1B's had US citizen friends who needed a job.
>>why are you so sensitive about H1B?
Are you benefiting from it? Everyone know it's a source of cheap and obedient labor.
"Everyone" meaning underachieving entitled citizens who believe its their God-given right to employment in a global market.
Compete on your merits and stop bleating for protection - this is the United States isn't it?
Oh, and I am NOT on a visa, but I have no quarrel with those who are. What's more *I lost my job today* in a group where we have visa folks, and I still have no quarrel with them, because I will, by my own efforts find something else.
I got the axe today. While I wasn't completely surprised (a clueless manager who had no idea what I do gave me a bad review, although my current manager has been teling me how great my work is), I was shcoked at who else got the axe. Low performers? Not the folks I saw packing. They were among the brightest, most hard-working, best people there. Their departure will cripple the team. I can think of many, many people that should go before them. It's crazy.
Happy at MS
Wake up and smell the reality that the EX-MS Employee said. Thats true. People are the asset. The great benefits you boast are available in other companies like Google, Quicken loans etc. Can you give the guarantee that MS wont slash the benefits by a percentage if the revenue does not come in?
Did the management do a cost-benefit analysis of this layoff?
This layoff is small enough that there is no significant benefit to the bottom line.
But the cost to Microsoft in terms of desirability as an employer is significant. Here's why:
If the probability of getting laid off from Microsoft and getting laid off from Google were the same, Google would be the more desirable employer. This is because of their location. Google is in the center of silicon valley. If you get laid off from Google there is plenty of excellent employers in the valley. Microsoft is in the middle of nowhere. There are limited job opportunities in the Seattle area if you leave Microsoft. This is a major factor any prospective employee would have to consider.
And if you do end up moving to Seattle to join Microsoft you are now going to be more cautious about really settling down in this area. I know plenty of young, new Microsoft employees who buy houses they can barely afford as soon as they get here, foreseeing a long career with Microsoft. Now you'd be stupid to buy a house here immediately after joining Microsoft. And if they don't buy a house they are going to be more mobile -- they can quit Microsoft and move to San Francisco much more easily than if they bought a house here.
Did the management consider the costs of becoming a less desirable employer? Is the benefits of a small layoff worth the costs?
In my group today they laid off 1 program manager, 1 tester, and 8 devs. No managers laid off at all (including those that have only 2, 1 or no visible direct reports).
At this rate, we'll have nothing but managers left, and nobody creating products.
I guess I should sell my stock now, before it hits the single digits.
But we're People Ready!!!
If anyone wants to know why Microsoft needs layoffs, read this interview:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/245859/qa-microsoft-defends-return-to-drm.html
Read it again because you won't believe a Microsoft public relations rep would say those things about a product. And the product itself!
I believe it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4708938n
Too many OBGYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country. -- George W. Bush, Sept. 6, 2004
Does anyone has #s on which group laid-off how many? Rather than saying E&D, MSN etc.. should be dissolved or SteveB sucks; IMO our energy would be better served collecting the facts, and starting from there...
I got axed today. I was an Architect in MCS (level 64). I was only here three years though and the whole time it was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. I was in the "achieved/70%" category, a couple of Star awards, spoke at 4 TeachReady's, did a lot of customer/EPG visits. All didn't matter. When I asked "Why me?" I was given corporate speak, BS and no real answer. I really believe if I wasn't in MCS I would still be a part of MSFT. Oh well.
Good Luck to all who were let go today. Maybe we should start an EX-MSFT group somewhere...Google perhaps?
13+ years with MS and laid off today. I'm actually not that unhappy about it and wasn't very surprised. The severance was good and I now have time to look for a job where I can work hard and be recognized for my results and be able to use the breadth of knowledge I've gained over the years.
I do think it was poorly handled, however. In the Server & Tools Div, people were told their manager would tell them today if they were affected. Many people spent the entire day getting nothing done but instead being nervous every time someone walked by their door or they got new email.
The several people who are always problems seem to have escaped unscathed and several very good people were let go. It had all the appearance of being who you knew.
I'd like to find a new job asap but remain unconvinced MS is the appropriate place for me anymore. Now if I could just have an easier time locating these companies that say they're looking - and they want a tester/author/project manager....
Microsoft should lay off 30% of its workforce to improve the shareholder values, how many freaking useless people are there in the company now? It becomes the garbage collector in Puget Sound area now where many people who can't find jobs in other competitive environments got jobs at Microsoft today, what is the interview procedure?! How the hack things changed that any trained money can pass the B.S. technical interview now?!
>>>>13+ years with MS and laid off today. I'm actually not that unhappy about it and wasn't very surprised. The severance was good and I now have time to look for a job where I can work hard and be recognized for my results and be able to use the breadth of knowledge I've gained over the years.>>>>
Can you let us know what was the severance package?
i heard remaining 3600 will be the laid off amongst the bottom 10% - for perf reasons.
Will they be given severance package even though they are bieng laid off for 'perf reasons'? What has been the norm in past?
60 days internal job search, 1 week severance per 6 months of employment. Levels 64 and above got 2 weeks severance per year of employment.
There is a lot of random FUD in these comments. Read the transcript of the earnings call at http://seekingalpha.com/article/116007-microsoft-corporation-f2q09-qtr-end-12-31-08-earnings-call-transcript?page=-1 and learn for yourselves what the truth is. Much of MSFT's earnings miss was due to the stronger dollar. Ballmer et al are being slow and steady in managing changes. I think Ballmer is a great CEO for these conditions. If you're an MSFT employee, this is the time to focus, work hard and band together as a team and deliver great results that make your customers happy.
This has been an interesting spectacle to watch. What other species eat their own in a panic? There are some, but their names escape me.
Some observations on your plights today:
I'm surprised there hasn't been an internal uprising of torches and pitchforks asking for the immediate freeze on Partner-level employees (for those unfamiliar, that's 68 and above.)
No announcement of promotions stopped, or bonus and stock grants. Interesting. So MS is willing to stop increasing salaries, but hasn't as yet said they're not going to reward remaining employees with bonus or other incentives.
5K is just the start as it's been said. These are job eliminations with zero growth. It does not touch on reorganizations which will entail RIFs and then aggressively managing underperformers. All that plus the contingent/vendors that move on (expendible, but bodies nonetheless) and you'll probably see MS decrease by about 10K or more by EOY.
The MSN herd needs to be culled severely. The largest growth over the past few years with nothing of note except maybe Live Maps (which does in fact work better than Google Maps on the right day.)
The reactions of many seem like people who have only known MS, or have worked there for so long that they've forgotten what the real world is like. I left MS a year ago for a better opportunity, but also because one had to be a fool not to see how much uglier things would get. Not that I'm particularly safer, but the trip back into reality has been far more rewarding and enlightening. Those of you who get cut and ultimately land something else will probably be better for it.
The shareholders deserve accountability and transparency into a plan to return value to their shares. It is time for Steveb and the majority of the leadership team to move on.
"Were there any extra layoffs with contingent staff? It seems like today was unanimously blue bladges, correct?"
I bet they start disapearing. Microsoft is in a cost cutting mode. They will not be replaced as contracts complete or just let go at points that are good to Microsoft. There are probably nearly 9000 easy jobs to cut there.
I wasn't affected by the cuts today but I saw some good people get frog marched out. I can't help but feel for them, they weren't 10%'ers either. I keep thinking about what I would do. The first thing would be to switch to Mac, second would be see what it's like to not have to camp on email 25/8.
Ballmer, Tom Cruise did a hell of a good job impersonating you in Tropic Thunder. I hope you sleep well with that fat wallet and G5 while good employees take bad news home to their children. You don't start massive job cuts while you're still in the black. That's so classless.
Does anybody remember MicroSnooze? Back in the day when the weekly employee newsletter (then called MicroNews) was still released in print, every year for April 1st they would make a parody issue called MicroSnooze. It was actually really funny with stories like "Employee dies waiting for shuttle".
Anyway, about 10 years ago Microsnooze had an article along the lines of "Microsoft admits money, not people is its most valuable asset". There was a made up quote from the then CFO saying that with Microsoft's cash reserves now exceeding $500k per employee, cash had replaced employees as the company's most valuable resource. (For those surprised at the numbers this was before management went on a drunken hiring binge and started pissing away the cash).
Anyway, it was funny back then. I guess it's not that funny anymore.
It's interesting how a lot of the people getting let go are the high performers and have seniority. Maybe these people are being let go because they "cost" more? Hmmm...let's see, it's these people that are probably making more, get larger bonuses, have 5 lots of stock vesting every year, have families (which impacts health expenses), etc.
I'd like to see someone stand up to SteveB and ask him what he's doing with his compensation and how he'll trim the fat amongst the partners. Someone, please stand up and say something...what do you have to lose? Maybe a job that will be lost anyway?
Let me get this straight, I'm supposed to work harder than ever, for less than ever, on a ship that couldn't find its rudder with both hands?
Even though I've only had exceededs, it's time to start looking around.
I still have my Micronews announcing Needham's death. I did a little dance at the expiration of that prick.
Two very naive comments that I have to address:
1.) Anyone that's been around knows layoffs are not precise, and there's ALWAYS lots of good folks that go. If you don't know that yet, welcome to The Bigs, cherry.
2.) If you're in a company that whacks just sales & mktg and leaves engg untouched, RUN don't walk to the exits. And if you think MS is where it is because of its engineering alone, you're probably too high to read this post...
I would like to see us make choices to make the stock price move up and quit doing things that align to the world. The new hardware suupport centers around campus are a cost that make no sense. I am bummed about no merit in September as I am sure expenses I have will continue to raise around me. I was also suprised to see layoffs of people with several productive years and no perf issues under their belt. If we looked at just the underperformers it would make a lot more sense...
about the comment about IBM releasing great earnings. But they also started layoffs the day after. Just not publicized.
Regarding compensation - there are four ways that you get comp'd around here:
1) Base salary
2) Annual merit increase
3) Annual cash bonus
4) Stock awards
Of these, the only thing that is frozen is #2. #1, #3, and #4 are merit-based and more valuable than #2. So this means that you can:
a) get promoted
b) get a cash bonus
c) get a stock award
All based on how well you perform. And as it should be.
Don't be too harsh on SteveB, he lost almost $1 bln today.
LOL
Have we ever pre-announced earnings before? I can't recall us doing it. So why today of all days? Other than Steve showing up drunk to the conf call, I can't imagine a way we could've done a poorer job of releasing this news.
Google is offering to help employees with underwater stock options - http://www.cnbc.com/id/28794412
Time for us to get this program again.
I think SteveB's days as a CEO are numbered. Once Sinofsky ships Win 7 (which will brutally kick ass), the board will have no choice but to nominate the guy for the top job
Sinofsky is not CEO material. Great engineer, not a CEO. Let him run Windows for a few more years and let it kick ass. Then he can add WinMo and fix that area.
4. MSIT is a behemoth 5000+ folks by industry standards, should be trimmed down to less than 1000
IT costs at Msft are some of the lowest in any industry for a company our size. By a long shot.
Clearly you've never worked anywhere else and/or clearly you're talking out of your behind.
The hit to compensation isn't just in the merit budget. The bonus pool, stock awards, and funding for promotions will be greatly reduced this year.
From those wondering - It appears that a bunch of folks are posting here that don't work for Msft, but are pretending they do. Those that do work here know and can tell (outdated product group acronyms, etc.)
Don't take all of what's written as being gospel...
Just say'n
Fuck you H1B haters - my compa ratio is 0.96. And I'm not exactly underlevelled, either.
A good buddy of mine got the perp walk today. Shame, he's a nice kid, been a dev at MSFT for a bit over a year, decent work. We're all sad to see him go.
Of course, I heard a few other names of people laid off and I wasn't exactly surprised. But good folks are being caught up in this. When do they start taking volunteers for layoffs? With the package people are supposedly getting, I'd sign up.
I worked for Microsoft till last October. Was with MSFT for about 7 years and did well. I still love Microsoft but moved on to do something different.
I am sad to hear about today's job loss. I was expecting to see MSFT lay off the bottom 10%, but looks like good performers have been given the axe.
I am hiring for the new company (eastside). We are very small and need another 4-5 people (dev and test at this time). If there is a group or something where I can solicit and talk to people interested, please post here and I will add myself.
There is no use keep talking here, it is bad, but we can do nothing about it.
Start thinking what you can do to improve your situation.
Being laid off sucks. There's no rhyme or reason to it, no matter what company you work for. Be thankful that you got as good of a severance package as you did. Life goes on, you'll survive. Take a breath, drink some wine, go to church; whatever makes you feel better. People all over the Puget Sound and across the country are being laid off. Deal with it, move on and stop expecting your employer to have as much loyalty as you do. This is business, folks.
My husband was laid off today. We were looking over the Work Group Summary of age/title/level of people laid off. If you're 45 years of age or older, you were on the lay off list. There were two guys in their late 50's. Most of those staying were in their 30's.
Well, I feel bad for everyone that got laid off from Microsoft.
I hope things get better for everyone quickly.
Maybe this page will help some people: Secrets of Success
Thursday - SteveB - "Quick cut the bottom 10%" and most contractors.
Friday - SteveB - "I thought you were going to cut the bottom 10%er's?
HR - "Well, that bucket just got filled up again with more falling into it from the 70%ers"
Ahh...Toyota.... no layoffs.
"This was the day to announce things like: Microsoft is cancelling CRM, Dynamics, and all these money losing products acquired over the years and not used even internally. Make it clear that Microsoft uses SAP and Siebel, and work to make SQL Server the best database you can use with such products."
That is sooooooooooo true. Get rid of those and their employees, problem solved!
Dynamics is not losing money. It makes money and is growing faster than the industry. Yes, we did spend a lot of money to get them and it took a few years to get them on track. Don't forget Dynamics product bring revenue to other MS products.
re: SteveSi for CEO
Please, at least wait until I leave. I don't have time to read all those long memos.
Granted, this is not the first ever layoff / RIF @MSFT. But, this whole episode - our execs keeping mum all the while and coming out in public and announcing this thing is first ever in MS history. I know Microsoft is not immune to the economic recession but I honestly think guys at the top could and should have avoided this kind of thing.
The fact that people here mention they have been laid off regardless of performance record makes me really sad and I fear MSFT will lose whatever respect it had especially among those good performers who should have been shielded from this fiasco.
Mini - Can we please have a post mortem on why we had to this layoff mess in such abrupt way? Also, lets just have pure constructive responses on that and filter the junk/rant for CRF.
A sad Microsoftie!
Hmm.. an interesting place for the MSFTies to get their frustration out.. sure seems like an unhappy bunch!!
European non-'softie again...
If you are looking for a new CEO (something I can well understand - that 18 months layoff nightmare is a sign of utter incompetence!), I would propose Shai Agassi.
He's tech-savvy but also a strong business leader. Should be the right guy to get MSFT fixed and employees happy. And if he gets the top job right away, I'm sure he does not jump ship again ;-)
"Ahh...Toyota.... no layoffs"
Why do people think they are clever by trying to compare MS to others? Toyota just announced 1000 layoffs in NA today..."
This is not about Ballmer or MS, the real world is much bigger than this and we've all just been brought back into it, regardless if we were cut or not (finally!).
I worked at MSFT for several years. I moved here for the job. What I gave was 70 hour weeks for several years. What I got was to see first hand the politics and BS. It was not about who was the most productive, it was about how much time you wanted to spend being friends with your boss. The egos and political BS are out of control and get worse every year while talent goes to waste.
Protected class? I had 5 managers. 2 were women, 3 were gay, and 3 were minorities. The protected class at MSFT is the straight-white-male.
I wish your ability to post on this blog expired a few weeks after you left the company, if I hear one more bitter ex-MSFTie "Back when I worked at Microsoft, bla bla bla and now that I left my life is so much better." or some advice from some douche bag investor that thinks he knows how to run a massively profitable company better than Ballmer, I think I'll puke.
Microsoft is an amazing software company and I'm incredibly proud to work there. The layoffs were unfortunate, but I'm happy as hell to work with the brightest people that I've ever met while putting out an exciting product that will be used by millions. Where else do you have a chance to impact this many people? Current employees should quit whining about MSFT, you don't know how good you have it...
Good luck to all that were affected by the layoffs, I hope that you find new positions elsewhere soon.
Technet lost some extraordinarily talented folks. I'm actually stunned at the list of people who were let go. I am a stakeholder with several of them. Layoffs can be done well or done poorly. Without doubt, at Technet, they were done very poorly. It is clear that a political vendetta was at work. Lookout XBOX....one of your new managers (recently transferred from Technet) was the hit man at Technet. I can categorically state that "he chose poorly". And Microsoft is truly the poorer company because of his abominable choices.
I agree, CRM and Dynamics :) Crappy PM's who dont know anything, though its under MBD umbrella, its not office ... I guess the whole suite should be stopped and employees laid off. SQL server has certainly improved.
The package would be great if I'd had just average stock awards.
But I didn't. I was a 4.0/4.5 contributor.
The stock awards that I am losing are well, well in excess of the package offered me. Even at the toilet-fodder price of MSFT today.
Not a good day here.
MS has the smartest engineers I've ever worked with in my life, but something about the process has to change. Their genius is being stifled IMO.
I agree 100%. We have layers upon layers of useless process. One can spend 80% of your time dealing with it and 20% being productive. The bigger the product, the more dependent the team is on the huge pile of crap.
Some take great pride in maintaining the crappy processes that are in place, god forbid we try to change it and make it better - they maybe out of a job.
I say invest in engineering overhauls, like some other groups have done, so we can do what we were initially paid to do. Produce great software.
cardkey doesnt work for me anymore
i thought they revoke it after 7:00pm tommorow
Microsoft is an amazing software company and I'm incredibly proud to work there. The layoffs were unfortunate, but I'm happy as hell to work with the brightest people that I've ever met while putting out an exciting product that will be used by millions.
Keep drinking the kool-aid. Give me a break. The brightest people at MSFT come from other big companies.
The whole "everyone thinks their Steve Jobs and Bill Gates" ego thing gets old real fast around the office. An exciting product? The managers here have no real grip on what customers really want and stifle any sort of innovation.
If I have to listen to another burning man story from a manager, I am going to slam my head into the wall.
Can you volunteer to get laid off? I mean could they give us 6 months severance so we can try something new?
If the probability of getting laid off from Microsoft and getting laid off from Google were the same, Google would be the more desirable employer. This is because of their location. Google is in the center of silicon valley. If you get laid off from Google there is plenty of excellent employers in the valley. Microsoft is in the middle of nowhere. There are limited job opportunities in the Seattle area if you leave Microsoft. This is a major factor any prospective employee would have to consider.
Go away troll, you obviously don't work here.
In the Seattle area, there are locations for Microsoft(HQ), Amazon (HQ), Real(HQ), Zillow(HQ), Expedia(HQ), Yahoo!, Google, Adobe, Boeing, Frank Russell, and TONS more. Also, Seattle is right up at the top, next to Silicon Valley and Boston, for being the biggest startup hub in the nation - based on VC funding.
Moron.
In the Seattle area, there are locations for Microsoft(HQ), Amazon (HQ), Real(HQ), Zillow(HQ), Expedia(HQ), Yahoo!, Google, Adobe, Boeing, Frank Russell, and TONS more. Also, Seattle is right up at the top, next to Silicon Valley and Boston, for being the biggest startup hub in the nation - based on VC funding.
And yet the only company I'm interested in with this list is Microsoft - I'm a systems guy.
In silicon valley my options without moving would actually be attractive to me.
"Microsoft is an amazing software company and I'm incredibly proud to work there. [...] Where else do you have a chance to impact this many people?"
Is it even possible to be so full of yourself? It's not like you're hard at work curing cancer or anything like that. What "impact" do you think you have?
yup windows gaming got hit hard. It is anyways a bastard child of xbox
Honestly, I wished I would have been one of those let go today. It would have forced me to look for a new job like I have been thinking of doing for the past six months. I've been with MS for over five years now and I have never seen a place so mismanaged. I do feel sorry for those who got terminated.
Blame for this can be placed at on the desks of steveb, his executive staff and upper management. Microsoft isn't the place of innovation anymore but incompetent management.
Management failed to recognize the signs of the economic crisis and only started doing anything real until second quarter, namely the hiring and travel freezes. Even steveb's email stated this. The economic crisis started a long time before October 2008.
Management shouldn't have gone crazy with the hiring in FY07 and FY08. 11,000 employees? Half of them apparently weren't needed.
Management shouldn't have been re-org'ing teams every other month and focused on cross-team collaboration. There was too much lost time trying to figure out who was in charge of what.
Management needs to stop playing favorites. In every release cycle since I joined my current group, the same feature has been screwed up. Yet that feature has been owned by the same "exceeded" dev since day one.
Management needs to listen to its employees. Because of short-sightedness, management fails to see the bigger picture even when their employees point out the larger problems point blank.
Management needs to stop acting like Microsoft and start acting like Apple. The internal competition only results in empire building and failed projects.
Apple's Tim Cook: "We believe that we're on the face of the Earth to make great products... participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution... believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful."
Why can't our management think this way?
I keep hearing that Technet/MSDN was hit particulary hard today. I'm shocked, as I used to be colleagues with some of those folks, but I don't know who got laid off. I'm almost afraid to call-up or e-mail some folks to see how they're doing.
Anyone know if a particular discipline was hit harder (Dev, Test, PM) or was it even across the board?
If the probability of getting laid off from Microsoft and getting laid off from Google were the same, Google would be the more desirable employer. This is because of their location. Google is in the center of silicon valley. If you get laid off from Google there is plenty of excellent employers in the valley. Microsoft is in the middle of nowhere. There are limited job opportunities in the Seattle area if you leave Microsoft. This is a major factor any prospective employee would have to consider.
Middle of nowhere !!! Well thats the problem being in microsoft you havent looked around, since you thought thats the world. There is Expedia, Amazon, Real, google and a lot of other good Technology companies. Its as good as silicon valley and no state tax.
Regarding Technet: wow .... it's like they did the opposite - they got rid of the top 10%. These were the people that could solve problems, knew all the ways around the crappy publishing tools and could actually get content published, or problems solved, etc. I too am a stakeholder and our group has a huge investment in our content on Technet (several million dollars over the years). We are actually wondering what to do now. We have had concerns about the disjointed tools that were forced upon us by apologetic, in the trenches Technet employees. Is this platform going to survive the ineptness of Technet management who appear to be unable to realize who are the valuable employees? Seriously, from our perspective, they let go some of their very best people. One member of my team who has been around something like 6+ years actually laughed when he heard the names of those who were let go. He thought it was a joke. I wish that I could communicate directly with some of those let go to express my admiration for what they did for our group (against all odds) and I wish I could vent my frustration directly to "you know who" (new XBOX manager).
The hit to compensation isn't just in the merit budget. The bonus pool, stock awards, and funding for promotions will be greatly reduced this year.
I know that this isn't true. Because if they were going to do this, they would've announced it today.
how many were laid off from Dynamics ? I have a friend who is a PM there, and i am afraid to ask.
What about the useless people being left behind and the good ones being laid off. What is SteveB doing, this is politics ! Very bad ... Its if you know the manager and lick his a** you are safe. This is a big cheat company.
I think Microsoft should stop the free medical and other benefits.
Site Management at Technet got smacked today. MK, EB, GB, JA are the initials of some that I heard of. There probably are more.
Does someone know who were from GFS? Debra did send mail today regarding cutback from GFS.
I work in DevDiv for the Online teams (MSDN/TechNet/Expression). We saw a lot of good people leave today - some 10%s but just as many were not. Total was maybe 35 out of team of 130. Think we were caught in the reorg from last Oct(MSCOM/DevDiv) which created redundancies, compounded by reality of economic downturn. It all sucks and no layoff is fair. I'm just hoping the best for everyone, as even many of those 10%s just never found the right fit in the right org. Good luck to all - those who are leaving, and those who are staying - for now. Nothing's permanent.
this is the stupidest way of laying off people i can expect from Microsoft. tells me the IQ of steveb
Protocol UA team that publishes some of the docs required by EU and DOJ lost some heads. Hope that means we're nearing the end of that road.
As a current MS employee, I think cutting the fat is a good thing - except that I wished we had done it before the market forced us to do it. I also believe that 5000 is not enough - just look at how bloated we are in many department. For example, in LCA, there are so many policy people and corporate affairs people floating around, do we really need all of these high level people? Also, why do we have so many people in MSR and the ASD? There has been NO, NO major innovations from MSR ever that has turned into major businesses for MS. It is so bloated. I came to MS with great hope but I now think it is just going to be like another IBM. The SLT is so bad at making hard decisions; they kept inept execs for years until they throughly destoryed the business they were responsible of (think David Cole, Jim Alchin and Will Poole). I think in the end, the SLT has very smart people and know the right thing to do, they just don't have the guts to put the trigger. This layoff is another example - they should have done it sooner with more people being let go.
First to our 1400 co-workers, we all feel for you.
To the rest of us left, give Steve B a chance to talk at the Friday town hall meeting before criticizing what/why these events occurred.
Not saying drink the Kool Aid, but put this in perspective given the overall climate in the US, most people would be happy to swap situations with us folks still employed at MS.
Technet: no way. I definitely know of two folks with those initials that work for that group doing content publishing and the like. If it is true that they were laid off, clearly msdn/technet has taken leave of its senses. Someone post the initials of this fabled x-box manager. I've no idea who that is. But would probably recognize the initials.
Poor MSDN/Technet. Anyone noticed these past few years the incredible number of site redesigns? Why not settle on a design and stick with it for awhile?
For 11:07:00 PM
For those let go, card key access was shut down at 7:00 pm tonight but will be re-activated tomorrow morning. It will shut off permanently tomorrow at 7:00 pm.
For those of you complaining about mismanagement at Microsoft, you obviously had little or no experience at other software companies. While Microsoft has its share of management problems, they are better than the companies I have worked at -- start ups as well large s/w companies.
You can find a happy, productive situation at Microsoft or at any other s/w company. Two people can be working for the same company or even the same manager and have polar opposite experiences. If you are (un)happy with your situation, understand that not everyone is as (un)happy as you. If you are truly unhappy, move on to other opportunities. Don't waste your life bitching and moaning about "poor management". You are not in Gitmo. You can walk away any minute.
What I got was to see first hand the politics and BS. It was not about who was the most productive, it was about how much time you wanted to spend being friends with your boss.
Non technical managers or political teams will not care what you know or what you are qualified to do and they will tell you this to your face. They are too busy l#@#!$ each others @$$!$ and you can predict your review will be based on how brown your nose has been for the year.
Unfortunately MS will lose a lot of good people through this.
Yeah, honestly, if I could volunteer, I would. Give me all of my vacation + 2 months + the package and I'm looking at 13 months. I'd take a month off, use the following month to find the "right" job, and then pocket the rest for a rainy day.
What about ISD? Who was let go?
First off, I'm truly saddened for the people who were let go today, even though as of now, I still don't know if anyone I personally now (past/present) has been laid off.
I'm confused about what methodology was used in the process. If comments here are to be believed, it wasn't purely performance based, which is a bit puzzling to say the least.
Still, this is about as graceful as you can handle a layoff as far as Microsoft is concerned. Most companies, big or small, will not give this sort of 24hr notice. Most folks will be able to go to their offices tomorrow and pick-up their stuff. Some will be staying for up-to 60 days and look for jobs. Everyone is getting a very decent severance package.
Generally in other places, the severance is next to nothing, and you have just a few minutes to get your stuff and be escorted out. It's a very unceremonious and indignified process.
For those of us who survived, we now wait to see who's next in the 2nd round and beyond. God help us all.
I had seen some reorging today, and I really felt that some people who were really a waste of space got off to a new start in a new team. I'm not sure why they don't weed some of these idiots out: after all that is what happens in some of the better colleges, why not at one of the best companies? I wish they would because somehow a few idiots get through the so called tough hiring process. I personally would prefer if everyone were forced to go through the same process that the intern hires do, that way you only retain the people you want to keep that want to stay.
Dev/Div - 35 people? From some of the other comments, I now am truly worried. MSDN/Technet needs to reassure stakeholders that they've some staying power and that the platform is going to survive. I am classic middle management and in the recent past was in charge of a team that has interacted with MSDN/Technet. My directs always reported to me that they had utmost respect for the ones doing the work over there and could never figure out how they were able to do the work given all of the obstacles that they had to overcome. The publishing tools are just atrocious. They are released to the world without some of the most basic features, the content is always in transition....hello....someone up the foodchain ought to ask some hard questions. Why not do some quintuple skip levels? BTW - the initials someone was looking for was "AV", or so I'm told. Did not know the person.
>>>Yeah, honestly, if I could volunteer, I would. Give me all of my vacation + 2 months + the package and I'm looking at 13 months. I'd take a month off, use the following month to find the "right" job, and then pocket the rest for a rainy day.>>>
WTF 13 months? are you working for last 20 years for >L64
Boy, that one poster in the other thread who got nailed for mispelling Chris Liddell's name had the whole thing spot on.
We had the early e-mail from Steveb, the pre-announcement, the layoff numbers were correct, so amongst all the FUD, that one e-
mail was almost 100% correct.
Here it is for those who missed it:
I am in Clidell org (Finance) and was told the following late today by my GM...Steveb will send an email out at 0600PST Thursday 22nd announcing cut backs in investments as well as layoffs. Employees will be notified on this day with Friday being last day
I agree 100%. We have layers upon layers of useless process. One can spend 80% of your time dealing with it and 20% being productive. The bigger the product, the more dependent the team is on the huge pile of crap.
That must really depend on what team you're on. I'm somewhere in the Windows org, and I am very pleased with how we've reduced useless process in the past few years. Managers have definitely listened to those of us lower down the chain when we complain about inefficiencies. Things are improving.
"Much of MSFT's earnings miss was due to the stronger dollar."
Unclear. There was some currency related costs as part of $300 million income and expense loss, but that also included investment impairments and those aren't quantified. Also, revenue was a % higher due to currency benefit. So the net impact on earnings would have to factor that out too.
"I think Ballmer is a great CEO for these conditions."
A great CEO would have organized their company so that it was more resilient to economic downturns. Like IBM, Apple and Google did. Failing that, they would have pre-warned investors to avoid breaking the cardinal rule: no unpleasant surprises. Also, not many great CEO's can claim a 70% stock decline over nine years as their legacy.
I am reading all these comments about severance and can't suppress one thought: I envy those who leave. No, seriously. Why? I was already planning to leave the company to create my own startup. I got some money to sustain my guys for a few years, and some good ideas, and a lot of energy.
But if I voluntarily leave I don't get severance, which is a pity. So, anyone got any ideas on how to land gently into the next batch?
MBD cut a couple small product teams that I know of. Dynamics had some cuts as well, but I think it was small number of people here and there across the board, rather than killing a product unit.
"But if I voluntarily leave I don't get severance, which is a pity. So, anyone got any ideas on how to land gently into the next batch?"
That's...just...wow.
I listened to the earnings announcement webcast tonight and I felt like I was on the moon. I kept looking for signs of intelligent life but couldn't find any.
If you want to waste 55 minutes of your life that you'll never get back, try this
MS is lame. Balmer has done nothing for the company but drag the stock price down while still padding his pockets. The news keeps saying that cuts are in HR and I hope that is the case because they are WORTHLESS!
I also read here that cuts are made all over the place in support. Hum.... we have a bad rap for Vista as it is. So cut support for the products. Yeah that makes real good sense if you are trying to kill the company completely. Maybe that is the "strategy"
Wasn't there an IdeaAgency event today? How did that go? :/
our group had a meeting today.
our GM came in and said "no cuts" ... all of us hit 5pm and there were no cuts.
he really reached all of us.
>>>WTF 13 months? are you working for last 20 years for >L64?
Nope. 11 years. That's something like 47 weeks or 11 months but I missed the 39 week cap comment among 499 other comments! Either way...
Add the 60 days and nearly 160 hours of vacation (4 weeks) and it's just about 13 months.
>>>how many were laid off from Dynamics ?
About 20-30. Most were a product team that was entirely axed. Very little core PM, Div and Test outside of that particular product team was let go.
>>>1 week severance per 6 months of employment. Levels 64 and above got 2 weeks severance per year of employment.
You know those are the same?
There are two packages:
1. 60 days to find a new job, after that 1 week / 6 months of severance capped at 39 weeks; and
2. 1 week / 6 months capped at 39 weeks.
#2 seems to be for new external hires and people in the 10% bucket.
Bring back Sexy! Bring Bill G back...Apple was reinvented by Steve Jobs...Bill can definitely turn this company around. Bill save us before you can save the rest of the world. We need some clear direction, strategic execution and a real business+technical acumen guy read Bill G.
"I would propose Shai Agassi.
He's tech-savvy but also a strong business leader."
He's also the guy who told SAP to go open source and give their software away for free when he was a VP there. So that might not get any better reception at MS than it did there.
not many great CEO's can claim a 70% stock decline over nine years as their legacy.
It was acutally 62%, not 75%. Not defending SteveB, but wanted to be fair: Apple's stock lost 57% since May last year, so even great CEOs can experience huge declines. SteveB actually has not sold any MSFT share, he's only given bona fide gifts. You really need to believe in the company to stay put like this. On the contrary, other execs sell shares left and right.
You know, I joined Microsoft because I still believe in the potential, and what the company can deliver. It's not a perfect place by any means, but then again that's going to be true for any company you work for.
I like the challenge. I like the relationships I have formed. I like the emphasis on Work/Life Balance. I knew what I was getting into when I signed on, and you know what - I am thriving, because ultimately my experience is what I make of it. I learned long ago I can only change my behavior, so I come in and kick ass.
I chose this lifestyle because I wanted to work here. I make no regrets for it, and no - I haven't drunk the Kool-aid. I enjoy my salary, and the fact that I am part for something bigger than me.
Quite a few of us saw friends leave today, and still wonder about our own future. And it sucks. I wish them the best in their future activities. Heck, I am up posting this because I can't sleep.
But you know something, I am still at Microsoft, and I still believe tomorrow I can make an impact. And if it's time to leave, I will bow out graciously and still be appreciative for the opportunity given.
Bring back Sexy! Bring Bill G back...Apple was reinvented by Steve Jobs...Bill can definitely turn this company around. Bill save us before you can save the rest of the world. We need some clear direction, strategic execution and a real business+technical acumen guy read Bill G.
I'm just wondering what kind of selfish, monstrous douchebag would take BillG away from his mission to END HUNGER AND DISEASE so he can make Microsoft run better for we spoiled, bloated capitalists?
I hate you, don't ever speak.
"I would propose Shai Agassi.
He's tech-savvy but also a strong business leader."
He's also the guy who told SAP to go open source and give their software away for free when he was a VP there. So that might not get any better reception at MS than it did there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the business coding (ABAP) IS open source in the sense that it is shipped to and visible for the customer???
Not sure I understand people who are saying that it is better to have left than have the future layoffs hanging over them...don't see the logic. If you made the choice to move, great. Some people decided to stay, great. Own your decisions. If you don't like the idea of having layoffs hanging over your head and feel you are good enough to find a job elsewhere, fantastic, go find a job elsewhere, the company is not holding you hostage. What I find unbelieveable is people who are still at the company worrying about no-merit increases. Have you been listening to the news, do you know what the job numbers are? Be happy you have a job, even if it is frustrating at times. Remember, you are much more fortunate to have the job than not. If you don't consider yourself fortunate to be at MS and that it sucks, leave the company, stop contributing to its suckiness. My recommendation - attack your job with more enthusiasm now than ever before. What have you got to lose? What are they going to do, fire you? Take on the management team, the people that you think suck. Call a spade a spade. Make it all transparent - transparency brings accoutability! Good luck everyone...heck who knows, I might be out of a job too. But I'm going to make sure that as long as I am here, I'm going to make sure everyone is held accountable.
Rock on Anonymous!!!
at Friday, January 23, 2009 12:45:00 AM
""But if I voluntarily leave I don't get severance, which is a pity. So, anyone got any ideas on how to land gently into the next batch?"
That's...just...wow."
No, that's...just...pragmatic, given the situation.
If you've been looking for an excuse to leave the company but you're having a hard time giving up the gravy train, who in their right mind *wouldn't* welcome the chance for a comfortable, generous severance?
Hell, based on my years of service I'd be looking at nearly a full year's salary. Even my ears start perking-up at that notion...
Get real.
That's what I'm saying, Get real!
To the unfortunate folks who got laid off, do not forget about unemployement insurance. I imagine most folks at MS would qualify for the maximum of $541 per week for 26 weeks. That comes to about $2200/month for 6 months. Add your severance and hopefully you have 3-6 month of savings, and most folks should weather the worst case scenario for at least a year, if not more.
I'll be honest. My passion for my job is just not there anymore. I'm a 10-year veteran, and according to my calculations, my severance + unused vacation + 60 days = ~9 months of salary, which is about $75K for me. If anyone offers me that sort of a voluntary package, it becomes very tempting to say no.
MS has the smartest engineers I've ever worked with in my life
---
In your life maybe... But ask yourself a question: what really smart engineer is doing now in Microsoft? Seating on his code review meetings done by college hires? What is it for good engineer to be in Microsoft? They pay more outside - it is the fact. Plenty of jobs still out there. Startup, Silicon Valley is 2 hours flight.
Bottom line if you are good engineer and have an ambition... why stay in the swamp of managers, leads and other process people?... or maybe you're not that good on current marker to start with. That'd explain recent MS failures. Maybe it is simply not atractive any longer?!
I am classic middle management and in the recent past was in charge of a team that has interacted with MSDN/Technet. My directs always reported to me that they had utmost respect for the ones doing the work over there and could never figure out how they were able to do the work given all of the obstacles that they had to overcome.
Umm... I was in DevDiv for years, and frequently forced to deal with the semi-conscious, low-quality elephant graveyard types who manage and operate MSDN.
I have never -- and I mean never -- met a more stupid group of people in the company. Those people are so dumb they make my head spin.
They suck, and I hope the lot of them are laid-off -- most of them have been there since the Tim Sinclair microsoft.com days and they need to GO.
Any word on free sodas? I don't travel, so that's an ok cut. But I'd miss my Talking Rain.
"It was acutally 62%, not 75%."
70%. Just over, actually.
"Not defending SteveB, but wanted to be fair: Apple's stock lost 57% since May last year, so even great CEOs can experience huge declines."
Over short periods but not long ones. Apple is up almost 250% during the same time frame, even with that drop.
"SteveB actually has not sold any MSFT share, he's only given bona fide gifts."
Recently. He did sell more than $1 billion several years ago.
"You really need to believe in the company to stay put like this."
No one questioned the strength of his beliefs, just their accuracy.
Of course we'd miss free sh*t. And there's a lot we could do without anyway. I think most people are with me here.
Free pop was just as much a social experiment as it is a perk(?). There's no social any more. Might as well leave us .50 cents for each trip to the kitchen. Or better yet, quarter pull tabs!
They suck, and I hope the lot of them are laid-off -- most of them have been there since the Tim Sinclair microsoft.com days and they need to GO.
Amen to that. Some of these fossils at MSND and TECHNET deserved exactly what happened to them. They should've canned the whole damn product unit.
i only saw my manager at 1130 today for all of 5m .. "our group and the parent are not laying off ... i will find you later".
zero .. nada ... he has been avoiding me all week! :) i got past the 5pm witching hour so its strange.
Tim Sinclair
--
He went to STB somewhere .. i hear he was fossilized. Anyone got any idea?
JoePe left before he was pushed out. His team got merged into their former home so maybe the "store" stars go out of business?
Just wanted to share a blast
from the past:
I remember a test manager who actually physically weighed printed
out test cases to determine if it was
"enough". I kid you not. He might
still be there at MS. Good times.
JoePe left before he was pushed out.
Speaking of Joe, anyone see bradzilla lately :)
Speaking of Joe, anyone see bradzilla lately :)
==
Yes on facebook and also started a "you got axed support group" on facebook :)
I'm so sorry that so many of you are going through this. I left Microsoft last year for a competitor. I couldn't take the endless politics and just under the radar harassment, the email culture of communication...all of it.
I have never been happier in my life. I can't imagine ever going back, it was like a bad dream. Now I attend meetings where we actually listen to one another's ideas - having a laptop opened up is a little tacky - and I can't wait to get to meetings where my leadership is there because I learn so much.
For those of you affected: This must feel so awful. But I promise you, there is life outside of Microsoft where you can make more money, work with the same type of cool, smart people and go home and not have to answer 50 emails at night. This can and will be a great thing for you, and I wish you the best.
For you night owls, make sure you
cc your manager's manager to show
that you are hard(ly) at work.
I sure am. ;)
brad do you stay in touch with praddy
sure wish I could sleep, but am unable to...so here I am. gawd, this sucks.
Why is IDC still hiring crazily? The IDC needs to be shut down. Look at their XP SP3. Even I refuse to download it from WU.
sure wish I could sleep, but am unable to...so here I am. gawd, this sucks.
--
due to a) being laid off or b) having to lay off someone?
Some of you will remember this guy.
He is my true hero from Microsoft.
Not of one of these, "I left Microsoft and my life is much
better! Praise Jesus!" testimonies.
Jim Edgar. Don't know him? He is the former tester who made up
mycathatesyou.com and has a book
franchise to publish picture books
of cats with stupid captions. Yeah,
pictures of cats. F*cking outstanding. I heard that he is
running a bar somewhere in Georgetown from his book proceeds.
So, don't give up hope and
Illegitimi non carborundum.
Why is IDC still hiring crazily? The IDC needs to be shut down. Look at their XP SP3. Even I refuse to download it from WU.
because while they suck .. they are only marginally worse then SE and at a way cheaper price point :)
they cleaned out johngray but still more house cleaning to do.
Jim Edgar. Don't know him? He is the former tester who made up
mycathatesyou.com and has a book
franchise to publish picture books
of cats with stupid captions.
-00-
HAHA jim rocked.
his site is still up
he can't spell worth beans
"Jim - Supreme Commander and Dicktater of MyCatHatesYou"
taken from : http://www.mycathatesyou.com/about
Does anyone remember the win98 networking stars who broke DUN and signed that heavy locked in contract with the ISPs :)
took freaking 10 years to break out of that.
Does anyone remember when bradzilla went to bandcamp with praddy and citrix threatened to sue us
Why can't I sleep? It's a).
I'm very confident that the smiling blow-dry who laid me off today is sleeping soundly.
I got laid off today in E&D. It was pretty messed up. Robbie Bach apparently sent an email to his entire org at 7am but turns out, the majority of the division didn't get it until it was resent at 10:30! Then after lunch, a bunch of us got called into a meeting with our GM. He said that none of the direct managers were involved in making the cuts. It was all done at his level and with his bosses (VPs) which I thought was asinine. I am sure upper mgmt is clueless when it comes to knowing what the little people do and who actually gets things done. What made me the angriest was that this prick GM actually told a group of folks in our org recently that there would be "no layoffs"! What the f$&k do you call this? The humor in all of this is in the midst of the reorgs, RIF, restructuring bs they're spewing in their emails some guy actually got a promotion to CVP! Nice, huh?
I got laid off today in E&D.
--
sincere: i am really sorry for this to have had happened to you
sarcastic: your loss paid for this guys new car/boat/house/
i do fall into the sincere bucket.
Who on earth is bradzilla?
Who on earth is bradzilla?
==
Bradley Graziadio
Look under John Devaan
Can't sleep either. My whole studio in E&D got the axe today (they took my jerb too). Phil and some senior HR douche refused to say anything specific to our faces more than "priorities" and seemed in pretty decent spirits overall. The HR flunkies that handed out the severance packets were in amazingly high spirits after it was over.
The more the shock wears off the bigger my smile gets (seeing the back and forth on here helps a lot for that as well). I fear that by Monday morning it might progress to peals of uncontainable laughter.
I'm not going to bash the company for making the cuts, for making them over 18 months or for not making them soon enough. What I want to say is that we need to feel for those (might be me) who are going to lose their jobs. We need to be supportive and do what we can to help our friends and our co-workers and our community. You all complain constantly. What are you going to do to make things better?
If comments here are to be believed, it wasn't purely performance based, which is a bit puzzling to say the least.
it all makes sense. since this is a layoff they'll try not to pick from the top or the bottom of the review scale. for the bottom, the existing perf review process takes care of things every year and they have never announced that as a layoff in the past. i think this way they feel they'll get more attrition.
---
75-90 to be laid off in MDCC Vedbaek next week. 10% of the people here.
Now they are going find out who together with representatives from the employees (as required by law).
Thursday next week should be the last day for those who will get the axe on this site.
No word on vendors like me here yet - only FTEs where invited to the Town Hall meeting.
i have to say i'm surprised to be one of the people chosen in this first round. i have a solid performance history throughout 9 years with the company--gold star bonus, nothin but 4.0 and 3.5 review scores, etc. it doesn't seem that low-performance was part of the layoff equation. the dead weight users one would expect to go first still have jobs. i was part of a group that was re-orged into a larger group. the heads in the smaller, less powerful group were axed. there may also have been some retribution for having notified my manager a couple months ago that i would be interiewing for another position in the company, so maybe they thought they could pad their layoff numbers with someone who was leaving anyway. i had also just shipped three very successful products/features, and was transitioning into a new part of the team. of course i'm biased, but i think ms is thinking short term. the cost we'll incur laying people off, then re-recruiting them in six months or a year will not result in a net benefit to the company. i have 60 days to find a new gig inside the company. then about 4 months of salary and benefits to tide me over. my family and i will be in sad shape at the end of 6 months. and i can't help but wonder why contractors and agency temps were not the first to go, and foreign workers the second. just doesn't seem right. i am not part of the bottom 10% of performers and never have been. my layoff is a complete shock to everyone i've ever worked with. i think those who see this as a triumph of ms management are clouded by an illusion that the layoff decisions were made responsibly and intelligently. that just doesn't appear to be the case.
I have been with Microsoft for 12 years and got cut today. I received my notice in email and later a call from HR. Anything they want you to believe about how dignified and respectful they did this is nothing but a putrid festering pile of camel dung. They are only saying that to keep the remaining heads calm. After 12 years is that the best they can do? And their earnings report stated they are providing no guidance? In market terms that means: "Execs have no freakin clue." Today they cut superstars and slugs. There was no rhyme or reason that I can discern. My immediate manager said that there was no planning of who would get cut. The names came down from on high this morning. All that means is that someone is lying. One person I know just recently got a recognition award and a promotion. Well thank you very much, get your ass out of here. Jeez. The company is not the same since Mr GE aka Ballmer took over. To the previous poster - I feel for you brother.
I also got cut today. Let me tell you how it went down for me. I get a call from HR. My manager is on the call as well but says absolutely nothing. HR would not answer any questions. I don't even know what I am going to get or not get until my information packet arrives by FEDEX Friday morning. Everytime I asked a question I was told that they could not comment and that the only information I will be given will be explained in the packet. Just before hanging up I was told to pack up and get the heck out. I guess I am lucky in a way because I didn't have to stare in the face of my weasly manager or the HR rep. Yeah buddy it makes me proud.
The least they could do would be to conduct the cuts in a dignified way. That is the rock-bottom expected.
Sorry for you, folks
non-'softie
Middle of nowhere !!! Well thats the problem being in microsoft you havent looked around, since you thought thats the world. There is Expedia, Amazon, Real, google and a lot of other good Technology companies. Its as good as silicon valley and no state tax.
Yes, Amazon is an OK employer. But that's it. Other companies such as Expedia, Zillow etc are not hardcore tech companies. If you are a hardcore developer choices in this area are severely limited. Adobe, Google have a presence here but most of their jobs are in the Bay Area.
Compare that to San Francisco Bay Area. Tons of big name employers. Tons and tons of excellent high-tech startups. I would much rather be newly unemployed in the Bay Area than in Seattle.
Prospective Microsoft employees, you need to factor this in before relocating your family here. If you are laid off from Microsoft -- and note that this can happen regardless of your job performance and skills -- you are in a terrible place to find a new job. Choose a silicon valley company even if they offer you lower pay -- you will have better security because of the abundance of high-tech jobs in that area, should you get laid off from whatever company you join.
I hope Ballmer considers this when he lays off more good-performing developers.
I also got the dreaded call today. Been with MS for 11 years and good, solid review record. From what I can gather my manager and all his directs were let go. I’m actually out on maternity leave right now so though my job was eliminated as of Thursday, which means an unpaid leave effective immediately, I was not offered a severance package yet. That will come when I am scheduled to go back to work after my leave (end of March) unless I choose to come back sooner. The HR person who called me was completely clueless and couldn’t answer the most basic of questions (i.e., do I still have health benefits) and instead told me to call this “HR Ask” 800 number with any questions. Anyone else given the axe and also on leave? I’m planning to wait until the end of my leave (since I think I’ll still have health coverage for me and my family) but any benefit to returning sooner in terms of the severance package? I guess I’m worried that they won’t give me any severance if I wait until March. Still in shock and can’t think straight.
I would seek outside council. The severance package states that of you do not sign the agreement by Feb 8 thenyou forfeit the whole package. I certainly don't want to add to your stress while on leave but you can't afford for a no-nod HR person causing you to forfeit yuor benefits.
Hey u can read my post on Movie Slumdog Millionaire. As u know this movie has already won 4 Golden Global awrds and now yesterday nominated for 10 oscar. WOW....
what say?????
Accept NOTHING verbally. Get everything in writing and signed by a HR manager. If it is not in writing it isn't going to happen!
Pre-market the msft stock is at $16.84.
I guess wall st. is not happy and wants thousands of more heads rolling.
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090118/the-three-caballeros-bostock-ballmer-andbewkes/
It wasn’t just Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer meeting in New York last week.
According to several sources close to the situation, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes rounded out the trio of chit-chatting execs,
Any news about Microsoft Dynamics and the layoffs?
I'm an E&D victim. A group of 15 walked into a meeting room and axed in one shot. Like many here, I have a long service with MS, 11 years. I hold a patent, worked long hours, and have a great review record. Sure I might find something else to do there, but now I feel burn. This company didn’t look out for the best when they said stuff like “we value our employees”. Sure I can understand business needs and focus on what makes money, but there were some people that I work with that are brilliant and they will lose these people to the competitor. This was very short sighted on their part.
Even my family can’t understand why they are even laying off FTE when they still show a profit. It’s not like we are GM or WaMu. Normally you start with trimming Contractors, attrition, and other cost cutting items, but cutting out what made this company is suicide. SteveB is going to take this company further down a sad road.
Here I make sure all my family buy MS products, and support them when they need it. I forced my kids to have a Zune over an iPod, even though their friends laugh at them. Own a MS mobile phone, even though have to reboot all the time (still drooling for a iPhone). Wouldn’t buy a Wii for the kids because I work in E&D. I never bit the hand that feeds me!
Being on the bench in MCS now seems like sudden death. The rif in MCS seemed to be across the board, and didn't hit the bottom 10%. From what I am gathering, it seems like it was UBI based.
"Honestly, I wished I would have been one of those let go today. It would have forced me to look for a new job like I have been thinking of doing for the past six months."
Amen, brother. All the people who say it's so easy to just look for another job, that MSFT doesn't make you stay, that there's other opportunities... sorry, but I don't have the same stamina you do. I barely have enough time awake for sites like this with the morning coffee. 80+ hour work weeks doesn't leave me much time for shopping my resume around. And people need to realize it's not just the employee making the decision. It's very easy to say "just try something else" if you're a single 20-something... try the possibility of being completely out of work, no income, when you're in your early 40s with 2 kids...
Folks, here is the reality. Companies are not buying new computers right now. Neither are consumers. MSFT sales are way down. They are doing OK in some segments due to customers with prepaid services and licensing agreements. Guess what. They are not renewing or renewing at much smaller amounts. The pipeline is grim. So while today the income is modest it erodes every month. Add another attack front. Since Microsoft released all the open specification documents companies like Samba, Sun, IBM, Novell, Open Office and many more are building open source versions of their cash cows. One company even has an open source Exchange which will air sync with a Windows Mobile Smartphone. It is a perfect storm. I give them 2 years or less before these open source products flood the market. Microsoft needs to be making some drastic changes immediately rather than these poorly planned cuts that were done as a dog and pony show for the shareholders.
I would pay serious money to see someone throw a shoe at Ballmer this morning.
>>>>>>I'm an E&D victim. A group of 15 walked into a meeting room and axed in one shot.
That is why you need to understand that you should stop behaving the way you had been. The hand that was feeding you fed you only till it made business sense - nothing personal. It was you who took it personally.
Over many years of my service at MS, I see many folks like you, who believe that as an employee, you are obliged to buy ms products and glorify them to friends/family. I feel just sorry for you. I think I should buy a product only if it is worth my money. MS does not own me. I work here, for which i get paid. Plain and simple. I would never buy win mobile or zune crap ever - even if they reduce the price to 99 cents special.
I hope this is a lesson to you, and you dont repeat this mistake in your next job.
Shouldn't the pitchforks and torches be going after Mini? S/he is a partner, if I remember right. S/he isn't getting fired, RIF'd, laid off, right-sized or whatever you want to call it. S/he gets to continue to post opinions about what's good for the company while people are having to go look for new work. (Yes, the support MSFT is giving to most people is great, and the severance is much better than most companies... but it's still losing your job.)
Mini better really hope their anonymity is as secure as they think it is.
MSDN and Technet needed to make deeper cuts. Working with them was a miserable experience several years ago, and from the sounds of it here it's only gotten worse.
Our group started working a couple of years ago with Technet. Our stuff is on their system, it finally works, we have exceeded the traffic we ever expected to get on the US site. But OMG was it a painful process for the production team to onboard us. In one meeting, the "site manager" acknowledged our frustration in having to do redo work: "yeah, the publishing tool leaves just a tad bit to be desired" (with a huge roll of the eyes). But this person got it done for us. I hope they are still there....we will be screwed if they aren't.
OK - I have got a different opinion here.
I think the firings happened keeping into account "total pay" an employee was making. We see a lots of posts from top performers who had been here for 8-11 years. Well if you are really top notch, and u were getting 6000 stock grants every year, that expense alone is 120k for every year. Add to that your salary and bonus, the person deciding on firings though, why not hire 3 entry level engineers instead of you.
I think they are right to an extent. Your rose too fast through the ranks for your own good. Now it is time to cut ur bloated "total pay" and hire 3 fresh entry-level engineers in your place.
Not of one of these, "I left Microsoft and my life is much better! Praise Jesus!" testimonies.>>
Well, obviously some are trying to be encouraging. This is such a typical arrogant a-hole Microsoft response. Unbelievable.
As for the commenter who told the E&D employee that you just work there and don't feel obligated to buy what Microsoft sells? I wonder how many Apple employees use a PC instead of a Mac? I'm guessing zero.
Did I call it or what: blog post
>>>>>As for the commenter who told the E&D employee that you just work there and don't feel obligated to buy what Microsoft sells? I wonder how many Apple employees use a PC instead of a Mac? I'm guessing zero.
I was the commenter there. I dont really care what apple employees use. I just follow the philosophy that my money would go, where i believe there is best value for it. I would never buy a mac, because i like pc better. But at the same time i would not buy crapware that ms produces (winmobile and zune being the best e.g. here), or use crapware such as live search vs google searh.
Bottomline is, i dont care whether ms produces a good product or apple does it. My money will buy them regardless who who is producing them. Conversely my money would never buy products, if they are not worth it.
Acutally to elaborate on live search vs google search - I remember steveb pushing employees like hell to use live search a few years ago. But take ANY msdn article or error u get in development. I can bet u will never find that article in msdn via live search, whereas google search will bring it in the first 2-3 results. How much crappier can things get??
Last time I checked in HeadTrax, there were 11,000 open FTE positions. Does it mean good people will find a job? Or the open positions are closed now?
I expected cuts to be made by groups, not sprinkled around here and there. I work in a small but highly profitable group and thought we would avoid the axe. I'd like to say I was shocked at who was let go. They were the people who either didn't get along with, or were clearly better than their managers. There are several non-workers that would have been no-brainers to let go. I guess its back to work making sure that my management likes me.
For those of you who don't understand the logic of layoffs, let me explain:
1. STB grew by 15% and as a result has been asked to cut the MOST number of people
2. E&D has increased in revenue as well although at a bigger loss, therefore they are second in number of cuts
3. Live is strategic has lost revenue so they have NOT been asked to cut. The only negative for them is that they are begining to make some money
4. MSIT is an ideal organization, their customers are extremely unhappy, they have grown phenomenally to thousand of people, and have built a reputation of doing Nothing. As a result they have not been asked to cut any, rather they will be allowed to hire and grow further
5. Close to the top we have the infamous EdPG group. This team has the distinction of producing nothing for the last 8 years despite having 100+ staff, changed their product code names every year to avoid any scruitny. As a result they are encouraged to grow and hire more
6. Finally we have IDC,the team that has 1000+ people making litterally no impact for the company. They have been encouraged to grow even faster and increase the number of partners.
So the logic is if you make money you will get hit.
The MSDN/Technet site teams paid the price for the ass-backwards turds the engineering teams in STO and STOs built and we were forced to use. Im sure more is to come for my former team since the new gm doesnt know up from down.
I really feel for my friends in E&D who were let go. I enjoyed my time there but left in 07 to get back to working with smaller companies and making a larger impact.
Seattle is home to over 30 gaming companies, and while the economy has forced several to trim, there are still open positions. My new company is hiring too (dev, ops, support, web, database).
Do take some time off to purge, catch up on things, spend time with family, and invest in yourself before taking the next step.
With security at MS no longer a given, take that chance and work with a smaller firm. The total comp/benefits package will be different but I suspect your overall happiness will be far greater. Priceless.
I had been thru RIF with other companies...a couple of comments:
1. don't sign anything, take it home, read it over, but don't sign it yet. Tell HR you are in distress, and it is not the best time to sign the paper.
2. check out this book and decide if you want to negotiate "Fired, Downsized, or Layoff".
You do have some leverage, i.e. what if you want to write a book about life at MS? If you sign the paper, you end all options.
Be nice when negotiate, you are the victim of their decision, you got family and kids to take care of, etc/etc. Yes they don't have to do a lot of things, but you do have some leverage, the book really does help.
I'm in DevDiv and I feel really angry and frustrated.
I wasn't axed, but I have no idea if anybody on our team was affected.
There was no communication from any manager (other than CVP email about cuts in the morning) at all.
Many people were wondering around the hall trying to get a clue if our team has any victims.
From the comments it looks like leads knew this information, and I don't understand why they didn't call their immediate teams and say we're OK for now?!
Or managers could send a message please stop by if you have any concerns, my door is open, I'm care about you.
No meeting / email of course.
Just silence and ignorance, and now for some reason I feel really bad, probably as bad as I would feel if I would be one of 1400.
At 5:20 or so there was an email from Soma, that by 5 pm people who were affected got notified. Great, that meant people who's still in the office are probably OK...
With 3600 letting go over next 18 month not sure if I should bother put this comment to MSPoll.
Very disappointing...
I like (or liked) my job, and today is the first day I really don't want to come to the office.
In regards to the comment about 20 PFE resources being gone..
I am in PFE. By the way, we don't have a bench, we have the other problem. Utilization is too high. Not sure which PFE you are in, but in no way did we get rid of 20 people. In fact, I've only confirmed a couple of people at all.
I'm pissed - our GM told us 6 months ago there wouldn't be layoffs, and now 10 good people are gone. I snuck a video into the meeting, and I'm so pissed I'm posting it to Youtube
I get an IRM error trying to read Maria Martinez post "Moving forward", even though everything else seems normal - no notification.
Anybody else in Services that can/can't read her message?
Let me second everything that PeterW said above.
If you can afford the time, set aside some of that severance to take time off and use this as an opportunity to evaluate where you are and what you want to do with the rest of your life. Were you happy? Did you enjoy what you were doing? Were you proud of it? Did you see enough of your family? Was it worth it?
Take some time to really think through what you'd like to do next. Make a plan. Then execute on that plan. On your own terms. Yeah, it's a scary world and economy out there, when has that ever not been the case? Don't be afraid to reach out for advice or even just somebody to talk to.
Odds are that down the road you'll look back and wish you'd left sooner.
Go kick some ass.
-- jonki
Well, frankly speaking, this layoff is pretty fair. You have 60 days to look for a job internally or outside, which is unavailable for most companies. Really, if you cannot find a job within 2 months, then your layoff is not coincidence.
For people blaming H1Bs. OK, yes, maybe it's about cost. Why should MSFT pay you $100 to write a line like "i++", which H1B cost $1? You think your job is secured if H1Bs are not there?? Don't you forget outsourcing?
Oh, outsourcing is evil? LOL. So you are asking the company: 1. No outsourcing for cutting cost 2. No low paid H1Bs (is $80-90k low paid?) 3. Pay all benefits 4. Pension plan 5. good bonus...
Man, take a look at Ford/GM/Chrysler. That should be your dream company for sure.
testing...
"But Ballmer emphasized that despite the cuts and the weak forecast, the company would "continue to invest in important areas."
For instance, he said that while the company would cut up to 5,000 jobs, the company would continue to add jobs in some areas, such as its search business, and invest in research and development. Therefore, the company said its work force would only shrink by between 2,000 and 3,000."
Doesn't sound like a real RIF at all!
Should we start gathering some real data like-
- How many each one of us have seen going?
- What was their level?
- How many years you have seen them around?
Bring back Bill Gates!
"about the comment about IBM releasing great earnings. But they also started layoffs the day after. Just not publicized."
Most companies in technology are doing layoffs. When would you prefer to do them, while you're still making your numbers and can be proactive, or after you miss your already lowered ones, like MS did, and then feel pressured to offer up a sacrifice?
Any remaining street confidence in MS management is gone:
“It’s pretty telling that Microsoft withdrew guidance when they have two monopoly businesses under their wing,” said Tony Ursillo, an analyst at Boston-based Loomis Sayles & Co. “Apple is a nearly entirely transactional business, exposed almost completely to the consumer market and they still offered an outlook.”
Are people in the developer tools (Visual Studio, Expression Suite) and .NET framework (ASP.NET, MVC) safe?
The intial round of cuts seem to be primarly redundancy based rather then performance based. Teams and people that were left w/o a clear area of ownership, perhaps as part of past reorgs and such, groups that had gotten comfortable just iterating over and over on the same thing people didn't really need, want or like, they were first in line. Its unfortunate as it means that sometimes good people were canned along with the bad.
That said I expect the next 12-18 months to show some very aggressive performance management to cull out the bottom layer from groups that are relevant. If you're in the bottom 10%, pull a rabit out of your ass and get up into the 70s, and if you're in the 70s, step it another notch and at least make sure you're still in the 70s if you can't cut it to get to the 20s.
I think there will be a lot more head cutting that's not classified as a layoff. More reorgs, consolidating teams that do the same thing (with the followin cull of duplicated heads), etc. Stuff MS has been doing for years.
Assurant is HIRING and would love to speak to anyone being laid off from Microsoft. Please visit our website at www.assurant.com
At Dynamics in Copenhagen, there are 75-90 people being eliminated, which works out to 16% of the FTEs here (not the 10% someone previously posted). As there are multiple teams here and not all are being affected, it works out to a 27% cut in the teams affected. No one is being told who is being fired until Thursday (29 Jan) due to Danish employment law. No strategic decisions about what we should really focus on! We're going to continue to deliver on all our ERP products!
@Anonymous January 23, 2009 6:28:00 AM ...
ROFLOL. Did Steve get the shoe today? That would bhave been priceless.
Apple's Tim Cook: "We believe that we're on the face of the Earth to make great products... participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution... believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful."
Why can't our management think this way?
Frankly, it comes from the top. SJ was careful to recruit the best people he could get at NeXT, because of his rather painful experience with the "professional" managers that Mike Scott and Mike Markkula had brought into Apple.
When Jobs returned to Apple, he laid down the law regarding the company's focus, and how the company would do things. No more blue-sky R&D, no proliferation of projects that would never go profitable, and so forth.
You can find plenty of bitter former Apple employees who will gripe about their pet project getting "Steved", but the fact is that Apple couldn't afford to support them. A near-death experience is an amazing thing for developing focus.
If any of Apple's senior VPs were to get Ballmer's job today, you can bet your last dollar that they'd kill Zune, spin off Xbox and MS Live, sharply reduce the headcount throughout the company, and concentrate on the businesses where the REVENUE is coming in. That means actually fixing Windows and Office, not just papering over the holes.
-jcr
I'm of the opinion that mini is largely responsible for what happened today.
That's rather like blaming Ron Paul for the mortgage crisis, isn't it?
Mini has shown a keen grasp of the obvious. It's not his fault that MS has finally come to grips with the fact that they can't afford to employ every coder they can get forever.
-jcr
"Ballmer should be first to go. He and his sychophants have created in his reign an atmosphere of fear that has destroyed our sense of innovation, risk-taking, and collaboration. And billions in shareholder value. Love Microsoft, but it's over."
This post got me thinking - Is it really over for Microsoft?
The happenings of the past week, the actions and the rhetoric of the leadership only shows that we have a bunch of useless blokes leading this company. Laysoff’s aren’t bad in tough times like this but the manner in which it has been executed is pathetic. It is very clear that it has been done in haste and the actions and the repercussions have not been fully thought through.
1> Very poor communication. The emails from all the leaders lack conviction and direction.
2> The mixing up of the merit increase stuff with the layoff’s is a big mistake. Clearly sets in mediocrity for the next year within the organization.
3> There is this huge echo of pushing limits emitting from the top leadership which is hinged on fear that exists within the ranks. Fear as a motivator has never succeeded outside the military because the point at stake is not life and there is always opportunity around. I already see that managers are using this to their advantage.
The net outcome –
short-term: we fired a few, set loose fear across. People stop thinking and start working ( read- kissing ass to save their jobs). Net outcome – high productivity zilch value. We also risk loosing our best guys.
Mid/long –term: The market turns around – mass exodus of our best people.
So is it over?
My team in E&D was reduced by half. Those who were laid off were told their job function was being eliminated. However, they were not told their positions would be outsourced. The decision to eliminate the job function was made at the GM/Director level.
Premier Field Engineering lost a total of 2, both being managers.
No Engineers were affected. Group is in the green and extremely profitable.
Woot. Glad to be working on Media Center propping up those zune and xbox money pits!
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