Microsoft getting ready to lay off 17% of staff

No Layoffs at Microsoft, and a Round-up of other Recent Comments: <a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-layoffs-at-microsoft-and-round-up-of.html" rel="nofollow">http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-layoffs-at-microsoft...</a>

That is a pretty deep cut, especially for a company which is profitable and has a warchest of several tens of billions last time I checked. (Full disclosure: shareholder.)<p>Do we have any evidence that this is, you know, true? Because if not, the rumor that I have $7 million worth of 10,000 yen notes stashed in my carry on luggage is also a fact. Please, let it be a fact.

Extremely unlikely. $20 billion in cash + equivalents on hand, 40% operating margins -- they don't need to do layoffs right now, and they'll benefit much more if they ramp up hiring instead.

If this is mostly MSN, maybe they're just getting ready to replace that unit with a company they're aiming to buy :-)

Does this mean they're renaming Windows 7 to Windows 5.81?<p>In all seriousness, that's a sign of the times. I'm actually interested to see what happens. Never before have so many programmers, developers, and IT people been in the job hunt at once. So with this flood of available staff, there is bound to be something interesting to come out of it. And I expect YC's next round of funding startups will have a record number of applicants.

What's with all the MSFT employees speculating about the companies private business on a public blog's comment forum? Maybe they should start by firing those folks.