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from the perhaps-they-should-have-asked-Cortana dept.
The job cuts were revealed in paperwork filed on Thursday with US financial watchdog the SEC. The doomed staff will leave the business by the end of next June. They all work in Microsoft's sales teams and its Windows Phone hardware division. [...] We understand 900 people in the global sales unit have already learned of their fate.
As for the latest redundancies, here's the relevant sections of Microsoft's annual 10-K report to the SEC:
In addition to the elimination of 1,850 positions that were announced in May 2016, approximately 2,850 roles globally will be reduced during the year as an extension of the earlier plan, and these actions are expected to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2017.
As of June 30, 2016, we employed approximately 114,000 people on a full-time basis, 63,000 in the U.S. and 51,000 internationally. Of the total employed people, 38,000 were in operations, including manufacturing, distribution, product support, and consulting services; 37,000 in product research and development; 29,000 in sales and marketing; and 10,000 in general and administration.
While the layoffs affect just 2.5 per cent of Microsoft's workforce, they are very precise and telling cuts: Windows-powered mobiles managed to seize just three per cent of the global smartphone market, and now Redmond is dismantling that failed operation.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:32AM
Forcing a UI better-suited to a phone or tablet onto a desktop wasn't the first of their idiotic decisions.
However, I can think of one business decision more idiotic than that - Apple's no-button mouse. Fucking pants-on-head retarded, especially for a platform famous for media work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @12:49AM
I like having the same UI on my tablet and my laptop and I use Win8.1 desktop view on both, with a narrow taskbar on the laptop and a wide taskbar on the tablet.
I have a "no-button" mouse too, and it's just like a one-button mouse except the button is inconspicuously located on the bottom side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:05AM
I like having the same UI on my tablet and my laptop and I use Win8.1
Yeah, of course you do! I mean, why else would anyone admit to such a thing, unless they actually did like this? It really could not be the case that a certain corporation, while firing its Windows Phone related personnel, would pay for people to pretend on-line that they actually use and like Windows 8.1, and have the greatest enthusiasm for the upgrade [sic] to Windows 10. No, that just is beyond the realm of possibility. What we have here is just an ordinary AC. Really! No, I mean it. Please just walk away. Please! I needed the money, dammit!! It was shill for Microsoft, or start producing meth in my bathtub!! I had no choice! Don't blame me, blame intellectual property
law!!!
(The one button mouse thing was just my cry for help. Help?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @07:22PM
Go West, young AC.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:27AM
It's easier to insert the mouse into own's ass without any jagged buttons. That was probably the idea.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 30 2016, @01:52AM
Steve Jobs as the salesman enjoyed putting his smooth creations up his own ass, because that's the ultimate test of user-friendliness. Wozniak put them up his nose. Either way, there was a lot of stretching going on.
I can imagine the internal meetings revealing the products-to-be with a bunch of normal people, who weren't fetishists in the matter, to attend.
And what those "visionaries" were telling the crowd was,
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:08AM
What does Disney have to do with Microsoft's phone downsizing? :)
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 30 2016, @02:30AM
I dunno. I was modded down to zero (0) for saying all that. Damned if I know and you know.