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IT, Microsoft and global recession
As you probably already know, few days ago Microsoft announced it will make the first mass layoffs in its 34-year history, cutting 5000 jobs. Reason? Company didn’t earned as much money as they predicted/wanted, and they think it is time to cut down number of employees and expenses. Actually, they gonna fire 5000 employees in the next 18 months, but they gonna hire new 2000-3000 new employees. It is reconstruction, trying to save money on non-profitable projects.
Microsoft is not only IT company in the world that is having problems with global recession and crisis. Many other companies are trying to find ways to reduce costs and to increase profit these days. Hawlett Packard is going to fire 7,5% of their employees to save 1,8 billion dollars per year, Sun Microsystems is going to fire between 5000 and 6000 employees, AT&T is going to fire 12000 employees… Not good news for IT guys, but that’s economy and capitalism. You have to fight with that.
Opportunities
But, IT companies can use crisis to reconstruct their business, to see where they are losing money and to seek for a new business opportunities. For example, many companies are starting to consider using Microsoft Silverlight instead of Adobe Flash, because with Silverlight they can gain more value to their business and save money, as Vibor wrote on his UXPassion blog. Now it is great time to start thinking about using virtualization, because virtualization can save money (Virtualization today , Why should you use OS virtualization? , Does server virtualization reduce costs?). There are many other ways to reduce costs, but let’s see thoughts of George Colony, CEO of Forrester Research, on how to survive this crisis:
1) Outsourcing is not a silver bullet. Use the recession to build internal skills.
2) Use a slowdown to improve the team — look to bring in great people who have been laid off elsewhere.
3) Avoid the “Dead Sea effect.” As IT consultant Bruce Webster has noted, the Dead Sea has an inlet, but no outlet, so most of the pure water evaporates, leaving brine. Don’t let your best people evaporate in a recession.
4) Cut training and development last. That resource is critical to success in the post-recession period.
5) Use a recession to make tough decisions — to get rid of redundant and non-performing vendors, and to cut low-performing employees.
6) Accelerate virtualization and other IT/BT efficiency measures.
7) Re-double efforts to add value. Sharpen ROI metrics, publicize IT/BT victories, honor and award great performers, intensify collaboration between technology and business. Use this time to be more visible with the CEO, not less.
8 ) Hire the great MBAs that would have gone to Wall Street.
9) Look for vendor discounts and re-negotiate contracts when possible.
Be smart, be affective, use virtualization 
.
P.S. Microsoft increased it’s income from server products by 15%. It seems IT companies are starting to use Windows Server 2008, Microsoft virtualization etc. Cool .
By Ilija Brajkovic | February 1, 2009
Tags: microsoft, virtualization
Category: microsoft | Comments
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