Microsoft Planning To Lay Off 17% of Staff Comments

Now that's deep - sure am glad my job is built around supplying what is considered a 21st century commodity, rather than a frivolity.. This recession is going to cause one of the biggest entrepreneurial waves known to man!

Can I suggest re-deploying the Windows Mobile team? Android's already better.

Oh, and whoever wrote Outlook is probably in the wrong industry.

Is Ballmer one of them? Please...

Without knowing the in and outs of the current economic situation for Microsoft, I don't think the lay-off's are related to them being liquidity limited, so to 10 mill. probably won't make any difference. The whole business about the Mojave Project, I'm a PC, and so on pretty clearly shows that Microsoft would be just as well off firing their entire marketing department, as you hint in your article.

However I must admit, that after my first day of running Windows 7, I could seriously become a Microsoft fan boy. This thing is absolutely beautiful, and it is only a beta? Give it half a year of spit and polish and it will sell like hotcakes, without any commercials. All that is needed is some serious business presentations, since business users are really the only ones who seem to be able to choose which version of Windows to run.

$10 mill is petty cash compared with 17% of the workforce, and it is frankly a cheap and irrelevant comparison. I am aware it is a cheap and easy shot to fire at whoever is top of the pile, but this sort of language is wrong.

$10 million wouldn't employ those 17% for a week...

And yes, Windows 7 is absolutely awesome. I need a new 24" touch screen

They're using this opportunity, the recession, to trim down their workforce IMHO. I doubt they need to do what they're doing, but if they feel like there are areas where staff can be lost then now's the perfect time to shed them without making waves.

We're going to see a lot of businesses using the recession to do some serious housekeeping. And because of all the doom and gloom news, it's not going to get the media attention it otherwise would in the boom times. It's take-out-the-trash year in the world of big business!

@Ben - Nice to see someone writing on here with insight instead of cheap, short-sighted shots. Obviously not a site with business insight.

@Gordon: I am sure many people will call it a mac rip-off, but then again that would not be a first for Microsoft. And I don't see anything bad implementing a good idea.

I like the fact that this new taskbar has much more space for displaying open programs and short cuts. I always found it necessary to hide as many programs as possible in the notifications area, which is really a shame since they have no place here.
In this new system I am able to get easy access to the programs I use the most, and there is a minimum of clutter, and overlapping functions. So far I am a fan, but it is clear that you do need a touchscreen to take full advantage of some of the innovations. It does seem like Microsoft has thought about the touchscreen user, first and foremost.