I was pleasantly surprised by the impact they are attributing to netbooks. From one news report:

"The software maker said sales of its Vista operating system slumped 8% on weak PC sales as well as a continued shift toward lower-priced laptop computers."

I guess a bad product can even be bad for a monopoly (but not as strong a monopoly as it used to be).

From Steve Ballmer's memo: "Our people are the foundation of everything we have achieved and we place the highest value on the commitment and hard work that you have dedicated to building this company."

What BS. The company made $4 billion last quarter and they are laying people off? WTF! The employees at Microsoft are obviously just "resources", nothing more. "Resources" don't innovate, inspired people do. Microsoft took a major step in it's decline today.

With 90-odd thousand staff and spurious be-everywhere projects it was over-populated to begin with.

THAT is the sign that employees are seen as resources, not the fact that now they have to painfully cut back to remedy these mistakes.

I feel sorry for the poor saps that worked their butts off on products and projects that should have never existed in the first place - no job and nothing to show for the hard work...

anybody read about the 225 million dollars bill gates just donated to Polio research? on top of the 100 million dollars just 14 months ago.

This recession is hitting all sectors. Companies and consumers are cutting back on everything. It's just the way it is until we get this economy back up and running.

I see Windows 7 is righting many of the wrongs of Vista. I have installed the 64-bit beta on my main PC and the 32-bit beta on my secondary PC. It seems noticeably faster and simpler to use than Vista. But I predict it will still be no ground-breaking sales phenomenom like Windows 95 or Windows XP. I think most consumers won't care, and businesses will upgrade only because/if they have to.

Apple and IBM are both doing well so I am not sure how much can be put down to the recession.

IBM is selling to business and Apple is selling to consumer.

The problem is not lack of revenue because of reduced spending in the recession. It is because they are suddenly much (11%) less profitable.

Microsoft has been facing their own crisis since 2000. Their stock is now worth 30% of what it was 9 years ago.

Polio :
anybody read about the 225 million dollars bill gates just donated to Polio research? on top of the 100 million dollars just 14 months ago..............

That is nice, that the worlds richest man can afford to do that, must make a heck of a tax write off. On one hand he gives, and on the other hand, as chairman of the board, he lays off 5% of the employees at Microsoft, during a major recession, when they will have the worse time of finding another job.

And Joe, if this one goes thru, and is not held, u don't need to post the other I asked u too.

So what gives with the layoffs at Microsoft? It not like they not still making Billions in profit. They did not have to lay off anyone.

@billybob: so MS stock worth a lot less it was 9 years ago, so is every telco's, every chip manufacturer etc, and MS is still in business unlike many others. 9 years ago was the peak of the so called dot com bubble. Back in '02 at the height of the South Sea bubble Florida real estate was worth a lot more that it is today, oh that's 1702 not 2002.

@sam : I suspect the attitude of the Nigerian Mums & Dads who's kids won't die of polio or end up with debilitating disabilities take a somewhat different view of Gates' generosity. BTW Warren Buffet is the the worlds richest dude, but a lot of the money that Bill gives away is actually Warren's. But the Pakistani grandmothers who see their grandchildren grow up free from the scourge of polio wont care about that.

@sam : its axiomatic that employees get laid off during the busts and hired during the booms, its called reality, it even happens in workers paradises - 97,000 factories have closed in China in recent months, resulting in tens of millions of lay offs.

I'd prefer MS shed some fat now in order that they remain a viable business, i.e. one that turns a profit. Like it or not if MS went to the wall then they'd get bailed out for the same reason that Freddie Mac, GM, AIG, Citibank etc have been bailed out, they are just too big to let fail.

RightPaddock says:
Like it or not if MS went to the wall then they'd "get bailed out for the same reason that Freddie Mac, GM, AIG, Citibank etc have been bailed out, they are just too big to let fail."................

MS is not "just too big to let fail." They are not a bank, or a automobile manufacturer, they make nothing that cannot be obtained from others. Not that I would expect MS to fail, at least for a few years. If enough people and companies switch to other platforms and office suites, yes its possible down the road. Even if the they were to fail, that would mean that another company would buy them up in receivership.