Being an international company with their hands in nearly every aspect of modern computing and Internet services, Microsoft has found that they are not immune to a weak economy, and apparently job cuts are in order. This is prompted by missed profit targets and a significantly lower than expected profit for Q4. Sliding sales in business software, video games, desktop PCs and more, all of which Microsoft plays some part in, have affected the company enough to warrant cutting upwards of 8,000 jobs within the next few months. That represents up to 8% of their workforce, which is significant for a company as large as Microsoft.
This isn't entirely what you'd expect from a company that was prepared to plunk down billions of dollars to acquire Yahoo just a few months ago. The cuts may not stop there, either, with rumors that they may be looking at other cost reductions going forward. Microsoft isn't speaking openly about their plans, nor did they mention if a large job cut or smaller job cuts over a long period of time are in the works. The only for sure thing is that Microsoft is definitely hurting, with their stock value being cut nearly in half over the past year.
The company is often considered to have ample cash reserves, but the bottom line is that Microsoft is aware they aren't making money like they want anymore, so we can probably expect changes to come from them soon.