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United Kingdom Businesses Microsoft

Microsoft Will Close Its Skype Office in London, Nearly 400 Jobs To Be Impacted (techcrunch.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Microsoft is closing Skype's office in the UK, according to the Financial Times. The move is likely to affect jobs of nearly 400 people at the London HQ. Commenting on the report, Microsoft said it will "unify some engineering positions," but that it "will be entering into a consultation process to help those affected by the redundancies." From a TechCrunch report: The London office is a key part of Skype's history, since it was the primary engineering site and headquarters of the company before Microsoft acquired it, and it also survived Skype's strange interlude under the ownership of eBay before it was acquired by the big M. While the move is no doubt a blow to London's tech scene, some former insiders told the FT that it's also not a surprise to see it go, largely because a steady stream of executive departures over the last few years have foretold a shift in the locus of power at the company. Post-acquisition, Microsoft has also done a lot of product work on Skype, with plenty of integration with Office 365 and a number of feature introductions that bring it closer in line with Slack.
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Microsoft Will Close Its Skype Office in London, Nearly 400 Jobs To Be Impacted More

Microsoft Will Close Its Skype Office in London, Nearly 400 Jobs To Be Impacted

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  • Consultation process (Score:4, Informative)

    by Simon Rowe ( 1206316 ) on Saturday September 17, 2016 @02:40PM (#52908271)

    it "will be entering into a consultation process to help those affected by the redundancies."

    That's because they have to by law. https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/consultation [www.gov.uk]

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday September 17, 2016 @02:47PM (#52908289)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Typical Microsoft acquisition result (Score:5, Interesting)

      by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Saturday September 17, 2016 @03:29PM (#52908409)

      Can anyone think of a single MS purchase where the employees did well out of the deal, leaving out the original owner?

      Not just MS. I know people who were at small or very small firms that were either directly or indirectly acquired by very large firms (e.g., IBM, HP, General Dynamics, etc.). Not a single one of those friends or acquaintances remained with new large parent company past a year or two. In every instance they mentioned how at first things seemed fine, be eventually the parent wanted to fully assimilate the new acquisition, which meant a loss of the old company culture, structure, etc. Invariably, there were pay cuts, removal of perks, reorganizations, office closures, relocations, and all manner of other changes that would definitely challenge the morale of those who liked the environment of the smaller company.

      As far as I can tell this seems to be a potential problem when any large and established company acquires a significantly smaller and/or less established company.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Big companies don't really buy small companies -- they buy their IP.

      • Indeed. If the company that you work for is a small one, and it is acquired by a large one, you will have reason to celebrate only if you have a significant stake in the small company. Otherwise, you are pretty much screwed. As somebody who is likely to be in that situation in a couple of years time, chances are that, if and when that happens, I will be laid off in short order, but with a nice payoff that might allow me to retire with dignity, if not with opulence.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by idji ( 984038 )
      when they acquired Excel.
    • to outsource to India or obtain cheap labor through work visas. That's why you see this pattern repeated so much. It's also why small business is the only real source of (net) job growth in most modern economies. You just can't compete with the likes of India, China and the Philippians. It's useless to even try...

    • And Satan Nutella or whatever the fuck his name is gets another raise. Too bad about those people losing their jobs and all, but hey, they were just lowly employees anyway. They can sleep under one of the dumpsters behind the Microsoft office.

  • The firing company. Last one out turn off the light. This means you, Satya.

  • A better question is (Score:1, Insightful)

    by melted ( 227442 )

    How the fuck do you run your organization so badly, that you get to the point where you have 400 "redundant" people in the first place? And how the fuck something like Skype is using all those people? It's a fucking VOIP app, it's not rocket science. I'd expect the _total_ size of the org to be smaller than that.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )

      Well, it's an app with something over 300 million active users, so I expect there's more to it than tossing a VoIP app out on github. But obviously you know more about how the company should be run than the company itself.

      As far as the 400 "redundant" people, than just means they're closing the office and moving the work elsewhere, not that 400 people aren't needed somewhere.

    • Somebody's been working very hard at making it a shittier programme than it was before Microsoft bought it. Who do you think created all those bugs in it?

    • They're doing business in a few dozen countries. That means dealing with communications regulatory and tax collection agencies in all those places. With hundreds of millions of users, keeping all of those plates spinning does take a certain amount of work.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      In that case, we should be filthy in VOIP companies and apps. Oh, we aren't. I guess it is time for you to start one since you seem to have a clear understanding of what's involved.

      • Look around.

        We are shitty with VOIP companies, none of them interoperate. Skype was among the worst, but somehow got 'critical mass'. It might be losing it.

  • It's a tradition to make this software worse and worse and worse on every version, so it's only natural that they have to cripple the development team.

  • 'jobs to be impacted'

    Slashdot's use of English gets worse by the day. Are there no proofreaders available?

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