Microsoft has slashed an additional 800 jobs on top of the 5,000 layoffs it announced in January say Company executives. However it is not known how many staff will be laid off in Australia.
Microsoft has slashed an additional 800 jobs on top of the 5,000 layoffs it announced in January say Company executives. However it is not known how many staff has been laid off in Australia.
Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman, said that cuts were being made in offices around the globe. He would not say specifically how many had been cut in Australia other than the cuts were global.
The move comes as both Apple and Google mount attacks on Microsoft market share in the application and operating system marketplace. In 2010 the Company faces further competition as Google launches their new Google Android operating system for PC’s. During the past 12 months Microsoft has seen major falls in both profitability and revenue.
Consumers have moved from Windows Mobile based devices to Apple iPhones and Blackberry devices as well as smartphones running the Google Android operating system.
Gellos also says Microsoft had already let nearly all of the 5,000 go, in what were the company’s first-ever widespread layoffs earlier this year.
Currently Microsoft, employers about 90,000 people.
With the latest cuts, the company says it has now completed its plan, announced in January, to eliminate 5,000 positions over 18 months. The latest cuts also go a step further, taking the cumulative number of layoffs beyond the original 5,000-position plan, spokesman Lou Gellos confirmed, without saying how much further they go.
Affected employees are slated to be notified today. The company isn’t saying which product groups are part of the cuts, but Gellos said it’s “pretty much across the board.” In a prepared statement quoted by PaidContent.org, the company appeared not to rule out the possibility of further job cuts, saying that “continuing to manage our businesses closely, as we always do, can mean additional headcount adjustments.”
