Microsoft’s quarterly target – the numbers it’s planning to report for revenue and profit – could end up lower than their original expectations thereby forcing the gentle giant to shed “thousands of jobs,” according to Reuters.
Wall Street is looking for quarterly revenue of $17.1 billion, according to Reuters Estimates, also short of Microsoft’s own target of $17.3 billion to $17.8 billion.
This correction could cost Microsoft 6,000 to 8,000 jobs, about 6 percent of its 95,000 strong workforce. There could be more cuts later this year or there could be no lay-offs and they would lose the number by attrition and a hiring freeze. Either way, Microsoft’s salad days are over.
So what does this mean? Well, first off I’m kind of amazed that Microsoft has 95,000 employees. While I understand that Windows is a pretty big program, what are all these people doing? Could it be time for Microsoft to start crowdsourcing some of its projects and hire folks as remote contractors? Bug fixes could be done by Counter-Strike clans turned programming shops and the company could save fixed costs of keeping all those people in Seattle.
I know I’m being ridiculous and I’m actually torn – I hate it when people lose jobs and I’m constantly worried that my friends and relations will get canned. But seriously: 95,000 people? Did Microsoft HR look at those numbers one day and say “Whoa! We have 3,000 guys doing desktop backgrounds in building three. We need 1,000 guys to manage them.” Throwing more men at a job rarely gets the job done.
um….ya know Windows isn’t the only thing Microsoft does.
They have MS office, enterprise level programs, servers, etc.
They have this little console called the Xbox, plus they produce their own games.
They have a hardware department that, though it’s certainly not the best stuff on the market, it’s far from the shabbiest.
Not to mention R&D (Surface, anyone?)
I’m probably forgetting a lot…but implying that Windows is the only thing Microsoft’s got is toeing the line between silly and stupid
some interesting thoughts but i am sure they are got to be hit with this economic turmoil
amy
http://www.yocial.com
also they have their web department. i mean hp has over 300k employees, 95k for microsoft is just straight efficient.
I hear you. I was just marveling at the size. I know big companies are big.
To my knowledge Microsoft has its own products like Sql server ( Data base ) , MS Office products like Ms Excel , Ms Office , One note book . Ofcourse their new product Zune ( competetor to apple’s ipod ) . Microsoft is the support provider to the At&T ’s U-Verse . Ofcourse let’s not forget X-Box. There are other clients for microsoft and microsoft provides software for them.
Apparently to develop all these products above you need great programmers , Testers and not to forget customer support consultants . As they have global customers they need so many professionals to support different microsoft products . and hence those 95,000 employees.
I hope this information cleas your doubt to some extent.
Thanks,
Suji
“Ofcourse their new product Zune ( competetor to apple’s ipod )”
Hahaha … that was a good one !
Ms has on wholw 5 divisions in every country they operate.
When it comes to marketing,they outsource it to another ageny apart from their in house SMSG division.
Now looking at the product line and Mix,you can imagine the manpower to drive the sales.
95000 is nthing compared to hp’s 300k workforce.
Sadly,every one is sad at microsoft and so am i.