Ruh roh!

Meanwhile NOA and Retro are hiring.
http://www.gonintendo.com/s/233289-a-number-of-job-openings-at-nintendo-of-america-retro-studios

That's a damn shame for those 18k people but considering this if over every MS office worldwide that shouldn't be too much from each region hopefully.

Hope they all have plans where to go next for work.

Yes it is.  If things goes down like most of these cutbacks, the severance package will be nice.  If you work in a market where demand is high then its great.  You get your nice severance package and also get another job within the week.  Its not all bad but its still a pain especially if the market you work in does not have a lot of demand.

Edit:  I remember when i was in a simlar situation when another company bought out the one I worked for.  It was communicated early that their would be cutbacks.  With the number of years I had worked for my company, my servance package was looking awesome.  I actually was hoping my position was getting tossed but instead I was kept on.  I remember it kind of pissed me off.

Hope the guys that were responsible for the metro ui are included!!! Oh well, hope those guys can find a job soon

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/microsoft-layoffs-stephen-elop-s-job-cuts-memo-1.1918689

"there will be limited change for the Surface, Xbox hardware, PPI/meetings or next generation teams."

Xbox division seeing very little of cuts.....most of them are seemingly those making the origional Xbox programming that isn't Halo.

Surprised there are no "what's going on at Ms" retaliation threads... Because there should be.

The 18k cuts will be mainly on Nokia's mobile division and duplicated position on MS? Nokia has a lot of workforce, probably the staff was waiting for it since the acquisition.

Buying Nokia was a huge mistake, especially considering the massive price they paid. It's probably also the reason Ballmer had to leave.

But whatever, every giant is bound to fall sometime. The higher they rise, the deeper they'll fall. I mean, if someone told me in 2004 Nokia was practically dead in 10 years I would have laughed pretty hard. It can happen so quickly, even with massive corporations, we all know what happened to Sony in the last couple of years. Can't wait to see the downfall of Apple!

MS's market cap rose on the news. Investors like they are streamlining things. Windows Phones sell best in developing markets in the lower price segments. Year on year gains are quite impressive if you look them up.