Microsoft laying off 5000 employees

treliac

kaflinkle wrote: »

So they made a net profit of over $4.18bn in the last quarter.

Is it me or does it seem a bit ludicrous that when a company makes that kind of money in 1 quarter, it still feels the need to slash jobs?

It's exploiting the state of the economy and taking 'the opportunity' to trim costs, rather than being about affordability.

poppy10_2

Chopperharris, you're missing the point. The problem is not piracy. Not even MS are claiming that. Indeed, Bill Gates once stated that it is widespread piracy that keeps them in the monopoly position and therefore rolling in cash. If it became impossible (or extremely difficult) to pirate windows, many people would simply shift to free alternatives like linux - there are a huge number of people that have never paid for windows and never will.

If linux takes off and become mainstream then it becomes a viable competitor to windows, and paying customers will start to consider switching to it too. That's the end of the empire for Microsoft.


No, the problem is mainly that Vista was a failure, and has hardly been adopted by any enterprises. In addition, with companies struggling financially, they are less likely to be buying new computers (and therefore new windows licenses) as a result. It's not coincidental that Intel have also announced 6,000 job losses today.

chopperharris

poppy10 wrote: »

Chopperharris, you're missing the point. The problem is not piracy. Not even MS are claiming that. Indeed, Bill Gates once stated that it is widespread piracy that keeps them in the monopoly position and therefore rolling in cash. If it became impossible (or extremely difficult) to pirate windows, many people would simply shift to free alternatives like linux - there are a huge number of people that have never paid for windows and never will.

If linux takes off and become mainstream then it becomes a viable competitor to windows, and paying customers will start to consider switching to it too. That's the end of the empire for Microsoft.


No, the problem is mainly that Vista was a failure, and has hardly been adopted by any enterprises. In addition, with companies struggling financially, they are less likely to be buying new computers (and therefore new windows licenses) as a result. It's not coincidental that Intel have also announced 6,000 job losses today.

Vista was a commercial failure , compared to xp , which was derided in the same was as each previous version of windows ....I liked every single one of them....eventually.

I was using linux when lindows existed (thats lindows not a typo), then lept on the ubuntu bandwagon.Its great for me , but check out the news report on the geek pages about the student suing dell for a linny laptop.It has its faults , and mass market wants easy as a toaster ..... ubuntu isnt the easiest of os to the mass markets fed on windows or nothing previously.

While my post isnt all about piracy , its about combatting it.Its about getting more product shifted , which is entirely about profit and its ratio for MS.The software is already made , it should be reduced in price to capitalise on the non ms legit pcs out there....and particularly the netbook that they wouldnt give software at a cheaper price for oem use.

Linux os is in the spirit of mse.I used to multi boot with dos/95/me/2k/xp and lindows.But at least you never said vista is rubbish , so I respect your post.But even for me REAL linux is a pain , ie non graphical.

I used beta versions of oem versions of most of the os'es mentioned.I disliked everyone of them until I upgraded hardware to compliant , and bought the software after sp1 on each of them.

Piracy of xp is easier than a legit linux for most of them that wouldnt pay for windows , one download , or from someone at work/college/market.Linux though isnt as easy as installing pirated windows , not widely hardware supported , neither will the isp willing to help connecting it to the net....and most importantly it wont play the pirated games neither.

Long live linux , pimp the penguin.:D