um fudzilla is usually wrong, it's even worse than theinquirer.net

Hmm too bad the XBox brand has yet to make a single penny might have saved a few jobs. MS not invincible confirmed.

There might be some truth to this, as industry and Wall Street has been concern with all the hiring MS did during the last year or two and been looking for MS to trim excess fat to satisfy stock holder. Their stock were hovering at around 25-28 for a long time and recently due to the recession and economic crisis dip under $20.00 and will likely remain there for forseeable future.

I don't see anything confirmed. No credible news sources have picked up on this story as far as I've seen.

Holy Shit.... if this is true then I'm shocked....

There are plenty of news regarding MS reduction of force plan and this probably likely to happen with the current economic climate along with attempt to make sure stock price don't sink furthur in 2009 with more bad news coming in especially in tech sector.

No reason to worry, it's as always due to Ballmer's greed, years ago he complained average wages for US technicians and engineers were too high and he cut some benefits to MS employees.
Anyway I guess competitor SW houses and Russia, China and India as well could pay well some disgruntled former MS employees to have a peek at Redmond's secrets... Even Apple could pay them... To know in advance how NOT to write an OS!

I don't see plenty of news about this. All I've seen is random blog rumours.

If I worked for MS Japan if would be worried right now...
Also it is good for companies to "cut the fat" with layoff every once in a while, sometime certain people are not great workers, but not bad ebough to fire without getting sued, layoff allows you to maintain your better workers (hopefully politics aside) then down the road your rehire that 17% hoping that you can improve the quality. You will still end up with some duds, but it allow for more fresh faces.

ROLF, i hope you are joking because motorola its in worse state and than sony.