The original layoff plan for Microsoft involved cutting 5,000 jobs, or about 5 percent out of 96,000 employees, before June 2010. The plan was then expanded with the new layoffs and is now complete, well ahead of schedule.
Wednesday's job cuts at Microsoft were spread across multiple businesses and around the globe. There was no announcement of specific product cuts as a result of Wednesday's layoffs. However, Microsoft has cut a variety of products in recent months, including Microsoft Money and Windows Live OneCare.
One of the 800 Microsoft employees involved in the layoff today is on Don Dodge, who served as director of business development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. He has a personal blog, Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing and wrote a post today about losing his job at Microsoft.
"Microsoft announced more layoffs today, and I was one of them. This was a total surprise to me, and management offered no explanation. This is pretty standard procedure, mostly for legal reasons, but none the less left me with a cold feeling...but only for a minute or two.
Today I start thinking about the next chapter in my life. It is always exciting to look beyond your normal boundaries and think about new possibilities."
Word of Microsoft cutting Don Dodge's job spread as fast as the announcement of the layoffs themselves. An article by Michael Arrington from TechCrunch mentioned Dodge's loyalty to Microsoft:
"My opinion of Microsoft dropped a notch today. A big notch. Don invested years of his time making Microsoft seem more human, and there are very few people I respect more than this man. He wasted all that time, apparently."
Microsoft isn't alone in announcing large-scale job reduction programs, other technology bellwethers like International Business Machines Corp., Texas Instruments Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Intel Corp. have also cut thousands of jobs this year.
Read more of Don Dodge's blog: dondodge.typepad.com
Cheryl Phillips
HULIQ.com
Posted November 4th, 2009 by Cheryl Phillips
