Microsoft to sack 15,000

[.xDizzy]

Back to work for me! Man, that was quite a long break, but I'm also glad to be back on the job writing for you guys. Unfortunately for about 15,000 folks at Microsoft, the same cannot be said since they're gonna get a lot of unwelcome time to spend at home.

Microsoft is preparing to announce its first widescale lay-off in its 32-year history by letting go of about 15,000 of their workforce. Some new year these guys are gonna have.

10-17% of the company's 91,000 employees worldwide are expected to be heavily affected, particularly those in MSN. News came in as they apologized for the Zune music player, which wasn't able to cope with the end of the leap year, resulting in a frozen screen on December 31st. Ouch.

Apparently, selling so many Xbox 360s wasn't enough to cover for that big mishap.. It's sad that that news like this comes out so early in the year.

[Momma Bear]

how is it that it was a successful year for microsoft yet they are laying off 15,000 people? Sucks, this economy sucks. We were talking about it in our office as well.

[QueenB]

Surely M$ have enough wealth to keep those employees in work for a while, if the bosses/presidents/whatever they're called maybe chip in and use their chauffeur budget for the month they can keep those jobs.

[nene2403]

This sucks for the people getting cut. Just goes to show how bad the economy really is today. Reality check!