No one likes Toyota (well maybe you Americans do, I haven’t a clue) and no one likes Microsoft (ditto). Most Microsoft employees are from Red China or India and don’t have any respect for the USA.

They get the citizenship and they will bring their relatives to your country. Do you think the chinese grandparents of the Microsofties will be working and paying taxes or do you think they’ll be just living on taxpayers money? I am not a racist, I have worked with these people, I know what I’m talking about.

Everyone likes BMW – built by us dumb blonde leftie liberal people that the Microsoftie MBA’s hate.

I am a visitor in your country and soon I’ll be back to the EU. Please get a clue.

Conversely, they also tend to be the fat that’s trimmed in down-sizing. I doubt the project coordinators and such are hurting or sobbing because they must settle for generic instead of name-brand for their anti-biotics etc.

I question whether the healthcare of 54,000 workers is so pricey as that, also. Could the tiny healthcare proviso simply be a feigned punch before kicking their workers in the proverbial gonads? Something to think about…

I’d rather have my employer say "We need to cut back, so I’m going to lower your salary by x percent." then say "We need to cut back, so collect all your things and good luck in the job market."

And yes andy you just got a pay cut. And where do you think that money that micr$oft jsut saved is going to go? It went straight into shareholder pockets.

It’s nothing but pure corporate greed. You will now have less expendable income to buy products that someone else is making. And now that persons company is going to have to cut corners because you don’t have enough money to buy from them, this is what trickle down economics really is.

Tim

Most large companies, Microsoft included, pay very little (if any) of their profits in taxes to the federal government. They’re well protected by tax laws, exemptions, and high-priced accountants. If these companies paid a small portion of that in taxes, the federal government could provide universal health care and many other programs. But, for these corporations all else is sacrificed for the sake of maximizing profits.

James is dead on in that companies have 3 key stakeholders: shareholders, employees, and customers. Ballmer is basically knocking one down to build up another.

Scoble said "Health-care costs have gone up more than 50% in the past few years". That is true, but it is an overall increase number, the annualized growth is much lower, lower than Microsoft’s 27% *yearly* growth in fact. Don’t just toss out numbers since they look bigger than another.

Lawsuits in the millions mean little to a company that has 56+ Billion US Dollars in the bank. To put it in perspective, a 500 million dollar lawsuit to them would be like a $10 fine to you if you had $10,000 in the bank.

The point James brings up, which is a good one, is that with the cutback in benefits it is reducing the effective salary of a Microsoft employee. Since when would you ever want your employer to say to you, "We need to cut back, so I’m going to lower your salary by x percent." But since benefits are not as tangible as your paycheck, these are the games employers play.

Perhaps it has something to do with all the recent lawsuit payoffs (we’re talking in the millions here baby).

Perhaps it has something to do with business evaluations of how the market is changing and maybe MS anticipates with Dell entering into the Linux world, MS will start getting real competition (which reduces future profits).

Not to mention when you take "pay for some prescriptions" across all the thousands of employees, you’ll see it would add up very quickly.

I highly doubt these recent cuts are purely to line Bill’s pockets, I’m sure there are much greater reasons involved.

I am a shareholder of Microsoft as well, and their lack of focus on their employees worries me more that give or take a billion dollars. Actually this cost cutting measure does more to worry me about the company than anything else, it shows that they are worried about their business, that maybe they dont have the confidence they once had.

-James