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Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

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Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#271

Post by clarky07 »

pierreio wrote: post #94

So MS Bought Nokia and ~30k employees for ~$7.2 billion last April. 3 months later, MS may now be firing ~half of the Nokia group. The executives who drove that catastrophic deal stay. What a testament to how disastrous big M&A really is. Is there any large acquisition that succeeded in the last 10 years? I'd feel sorry if I was a Nokia guy there, they pulled out the best non-Apple phone hardware in the last years. P…

You seem to not understand how mergers and acquisitions work. There are generally large redundancies which is part of the reason for the deal. Get rid of payroll while maintaining the same total output. Also, a major reason for buying Nokia had to be it's IP. I don't think this is any way a sign the deal failed, and I'm sure it was expected by all of the executives and most of the employees.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#272

Post by tomkarlo »

pierreio wrote: post #94

So MS Bought Nokia and ~30k employees for ~$7.2 billion last April. 3 months later, MS may now be firing ~half of the Nokia group. The executives who drove that catastrophic deal stay. What a testament to how disastrous big M&A really is. Is there any large acquisition that succeeded in the last 10 years? I'd feel sorry if I was a Nokia guy there, they pulled out the best non-Apple phone hardware in the last years. P…

It doesn't make sense for a company that's trying to sell itself to also start making large cuts - it may drive your own price down by signaling that your businesses lack potential. The acquiring company will calculate in the cost (and savings) from the cuts ("synergies", to use the banking term) and just roll them into the purchase price.

So if you're the selling CEO / board, you get to claim you sold the company whole, and if you're the buyer, you just blame the cuts on the increased efficiencies to be gained from combining the companies - it's a sign that the deal is "successful" and you're achieving the synergies you modeled before the purchase.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#273

Post by sgedljsgejkl »

pliptvo wrote: post #252

I find it fascinating that there's not a single comment here regarding industrial action. 18,000 people will have their jobs slashed just like that without any resistance? Instead they're just meant to leave with a smile on their face knowing that it's in the supposed benefit of their former employer? I'm sure Nadella finds the decision to send 18,000 people to the job market much more 'difficult' than they'll find i…

Do you even know what the definition of at will employment is?

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#274

Post by higherpurpose »

sz4kerto wrote: post #104
pierreio wrote: post #94

So MS Bought Nokia and ~30k employees for ~$7.2 billion last April. 3 months later, MS may now be firing ~half of the Nokia group. The executives who drove that catastrophic deal stay. What a testament to how disastrous big M&A really is. Is there any large acquisition that succeeded in the last 10 years? I'd feel sorry if I was a Nokia guy there, they pulled out the best non-Apple phone hardware in the last years. P…

> Is there any large acquisition that succeeded in the last 10 years? Yes, many. Think of the Lenovo-IBM deal -- massive success. The Facebook-Whatsapp deal is 2.5x bigger than this acquisition, we'll see how that works out (financially). Google-Youtube is a big one that can be considered as a big success as well. Ebay-Paypal. FB-Instagram.

Many of your examples are super-valued acquisitions, paid mostly with stock funny-money, and that employ a few hundred employees at best, which makes them irrelevant to the case here, where Microsoft got 30,000 employees from Nokia.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#275

Post by chris_mahan »

Yrlec wrote: post #118
pierreio wrote: post #94

So MS Bought Nokia and ~30k employees for ~$7.2 billion last April. 3 months later, MS may now be firing ~half of the Nokia group. The executives who drove that catastrophic deal stay. What a testament to how disastrous big M&A really is. Is there any large acquisition that succeeded in the last 10 years? I'd feel sorry if I was a Nokia guy there, they pulled out the best non-Apple phone hardware in the last years. P…

Usually one of the main reasons you do M&A is that there are redundancies between the organizations. Therefore, being able to lay people off while maintaining the same output is one of the goals of the deal, not a sign of failure.

Ah, perhaps if you're the MBA bean counter type. In reality, you should grow the business, because now you have much better back-office capabilities to support a more distributed, more diverse workforce. Don't be afraid of having lots of people, be afraid of not managing (supporting) them well, causing inefficiency.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#276

Post by kaonashi »

72deluxe wrote: post #187
dschiptsov wrote: post #62

So, finally, reality reasserted itself, and despite millions spent for brainwashing, Windows is already belongs to the past, the very same way Nokia phones are..)

How many people do you know using Windows? How many of your work colleagues use Windows at work? Does it really "belong to the past"?

About 20% of the people I work with use Windows. None of them are developers.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#277

Post by yourapostasy »

silverbax88 wrote: post #85
kabdib wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stock is up over 45 now . . . Getting rid of dead wood is a great idea. Tons of middle management there, just sitting for years and causing obstructive damage.

A friend of mine who has been CFO of a couple of Fortune 500 companies once told me that layoffs always drive a stock price up, and that it's also one of the single biggest proofs that Wall Street analysts have no idea how to run a real business. He explained that any company who could shed a massive amount of its workforce within a year, or all at once, is a red flag for massive internal problems. At the time we had…

Your friend is right, but Wall Street won't listen to him because it means fewer quantifiable metrics for Wall Street to latch onto to evaluate (or pretend to evaluate) how well the company is doing. The analysts would then have to evaluate based upon actually understanding the company in depth, meaning they have to invest more hours into analysis and cover fewer companies, and reduce their own effectiveness/profitability. Not understanding the business at a deep level in this situation is a feature for Wall Street, not a bug. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#278

Post by clarky07 »

ssmoot wrote: post #259
SandB0x wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my attempt at removing some of the worst fluff from the email: Last week in my email to you I outlined our direction as a productivity and platform company. On July 22, during our public earnings call, I’ll share further specifics on where we are focusing our innovation investments. The first step to building the right organization is to make changes to our workforce. With this in mind, we will begin to reduce…

Making the public earnings call the centerpiece seems like a real bad morale move. If I were a 'Softie it would be a strong signal where the leadership's priorities lie (stock price). It gives the talk of "lean" and "accountability" a decidedly negative undertone IMO. I do like the line about "the respect they deserve" without qualifier. It adds a bit of humanity to the whole thing. But not enough overall IMO. It rea…

well, his duty is to the shareholders so having that as a priority sounds like a good thing to me. Yes treating your employees well is a good thing, and it's necessary for a successful business, but that doesn't mean you should keep people who aren't needed or aren't performing.

With an acquisition of this size there are going to be redundant people, and as Nokia was headed towards going out of business, everyone would have lost their job instead of just half.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#279

Post by Aloha »

chris_mahan wrote: post #275
Yrlec wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually one of the main reasons you do M&A is that there are redundancies between the organizations. Therefore, being able to lay people off while maintaining the same output is one of the goals of the deal, not a sign of failure.

Ah, perhaps if you're the MBA bean counter type. In reality, you should grow the business, because now you have much better back-office capabilities to support a more distributed, more diverse workforce. Don't be afraid of having lots of people, be afraid of not managing (supporting) them well, causing inefficiency.

There is a whole lot of overlapping administravia, you don't need 2 full sized legal departments, finance groups, HR group, marketing groups, sales groups and so on. Some layoffs will happen.

Re: Microsoft Looks to Cut Up to 18,000 Jobs

#280

Post by danielweber »

brational wrote: post #164
ggreer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only bit I would disagree with is, "For our business to continue running..." Last year, Microsoft made over $20 billion profit on almost $80 billion in revenue. The truth is that Microsoft has accumulated many useless employees over the years, and they could be even more profitable by laying off those people.

"For our business to remain competitive... "

"For your convenience, 15% of positions will be removed."
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