Microsoft employees are girding for massive layoffs that could top the record 5,800 they suffered in 2009, according to a report in Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources. (Microsoft spokesman Frank X. Shaw declined comment.)
Some may interpret such a deep work force reduction as another sign of Microsoft’s fade into irrelevance – and who can question their instincts when thousands of people lose their jobs? – but it is an essential albeit painful step toward a company-wide renaissance.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella inherited a wheezing computer giant from his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.
Microsoft had become a prisoner of its legacy software while rivals Google, Apple and Facebook lapped it in the areas of mobile computing, smartphones and tablets. Then-CEO Ballmer, a voluble salesman, was conspicuously invisible for months at a time. A $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia bloated the payroll.
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Microsoft needed to do something drastic, analysts and pundits agreed.
It all seemed to change — for the better — in the spring, when an articulate, confident freshly appointed Nadella twice addressed reporters. The new CEO began to lay out a vision for the future in mobile and cloud computing while acknowledging what appeals to consumers.
In re-engineering Microsoft, layoffs were inevitable. The cuts are likely to affect positions that overlap with the Nokia business, as well as jobs in marketing and engineering, according to Bloomberg.
Rumors of the looming bloodletting come a week after Nadella sent a memo to workers, extolling a new vision for the company with laser focus on mobile and cloud computing.
Change isn’t easy nor pretty in tech. It comes fast, furiously and without much sentiment. Whenever a company — especially one as big as Microsoft — undergoes a transformation, it often leads to ruthless layoffs. It is a recurring story line in the Silicon Valley narrative.
But it is often necessary for survival. And Microsoft, in contemplating deep cuts, just took an important step in the Nadella era.
Date: July 15, 2014