Performance or Popularity ?

I'm all for a mini and small mid size 30 K people company as like how we used to be before 10 years. The addition of 60 K people in this last one decade we've not achieved anything excellent product wise.

ideally everyone was exepecting the reason behind the layoffs to be, layoffs. That's not the case.
Case No. 1
employee is a senior manager in one of the smallest divisions of 3 businesses in hyderabad.
This manager X did not helped his manager Y to do all the honky ponky way of hiring and letting the Y manager's relatives to be hired. Mr.Y kept an eye over X continuosly and took his head when this god sent opportunity by our Big Ball(mer) boy came.

Case No.2
Second employee mid level manager. raises concerns, openly talks about poor practices, protests manager screw ups openly and brings it to timely notices of HR. Kick him off, threat message sent from higher ups utiling this opportunity.
MANAGER RELATION SCREW UPS are the only commanlity between all the laid off folks.

Now for time being, I'll stop with this 2 examples.
Atleast 15/60 of those guys( predominantly IT/SMSG/MGSI), I've worked with them directly or indirectly. So pathetic to see the non-performers(bottom 'underperformed') of the company are still get to stay and those 'Exceeded', 'Achieved' rated guys are kicked out.

I'm not going to stay with this company anymore, I'm more than willing to quit this 'filthy' practices, completely corrupt company any time if i can get another opportunity which doesn't need to pay me this much money, atleast work should be good and no politics. Anyone has such offers drop me a mail @ minimsftindia@gmail.com . will collate my resume and my likeminded friends resumes as well to the offered company.
i think 6-7 year with this company is more than enough to see through the whole cycle...
I'm also seriously searching monster, naukri.
Problem I face is, despite my 10+ year experience and 6-7 years in MS, outside market is not preferring MS folks as they're not finding us competent enough, "more talking, less work, just bluffers,highly priced". This is one of my recruiter friend's comment, so guys instead waiting for the day the next worst axe will come to your neck( July'23-Q4 and FY results), prepare yourself now. I know everyone of us got here by intelligence and 6-7 rounds of interviewing, so with little bit of planning and hard work we can land into an right opportunity without facing the social stigma.

Lets abandon this crappy place together and search for some nicer one...

Bring your child to work

CRAP !
I've seen how this program is executed before, not certainly this way, dirty cheap and very bad timing.
First of all when all the employees morale are down, why we're attempting at such very employee program in a cheap manner ? Suspend all such nonsenses, crap and bull shits for some more time...
I myself did not attempt to bring my kid to office that day, what's there to show in this office anymore ?
My frustrated colleagues, my military setup work offices (which is not allowing my old colleagues, but allowing my kids, totally idotic).
Please treat my impacted colleagues well until they're legally separating, if they revolt Indian government intervention satyam saga may repeat here and you guys may need to spend more to the politicians. Since you folks have not done a religious job of selecting people by merit for this first round of layoffs, please do not treat them badly.
Atleast in next rounds, cut only the fat Mr.Fatty Ballmer Boy, not the true veterans loyalists of the land. Now the useless freshers joined in IDC this month, APEX in MSIT dont have any confidence at all about the company's future and full time spending in monster and naukri. Try to see how much our internal traffic has grown in Monster, Naukri.
Do you think employees will still believe your story that the company takes care of them and their family ? what a idiotic attempt...
Do not even attempt telling all these stories, try to fix the real problems.
Get rid of crap mid and top management first. Do a sincere exercise through 3rd party about what's being really managed by the so called mid and top management , dont allow our HRBP since they're equally crap than anyone else in the company.

MS IT India

Full of bull shit mid management and shitty top management( exceptions are there)
Meher Afroz
Let us start with Meher Afroz, She used to be Senior Project Manager kind of role in GE. Due to Moorthy's aashirvath, she reached the top most post when the GE gang took over MS IT India, lots of people including Moorhty got lost in the journey. But Meher some how still is able to keep her job despite many of her previous screw ups like bloating LPO four times for the sake of bumping up her own designation. People were laughing at her when she disagreed to report to Ramkp when LPO came under his portfolio and standing adjacent to him showing her ego in public. She don't know the basics of programming ( she thinks people code with telugu instead c#, dot net), such is the technical knowledge.
For God sake, stop this diversity nonsense argument and FIRE her. You can even check with the women employees in her own team and in direct team how egoistic she is.
Among the 3 principal/PUM she has, 1 guy is GE shit. Better fire 2 of them and place the whole organization under one principal/PUM. Realign this whole BG org to other leaders like Ramkp as an additional management work.
They sacked some good long term guys recently due to manager relationship thing, calling position cruciality. BRUTAL.
God save rest of the group if this trend continues. Go and pick your manager daily morning and drop him in the evening, this is the only way we can continue maintain our rapport with our managers.
Nagender Vedula
Tentative leader of MS IT India, too much of over head. Heard he was not a great top notch performer or anything of that sort when he used to work for Sudeep in MS IDC.
MS IT and Moorthy helped this incompete Principal man to become GM. He started bullying other leaders publicly which was not taken lightly among his peers, he survived just due to Moorthy's aashirvath again.
7 principal/PUMs- Half of them were oldies who failed miserably in their previous orgs. Cut this 7 principal/PUM as 3. Lot of those principal/PUMs are just managing 10-12 people which can be done by any Sr level (62-63) people also. Nagender team also got hit by the recent layoffs.
People hated to see Nagender's unfriendly face before they left(kicked out) out of "Rocking RxD".
About Nagender, downgrade him as PUM as like his previosu MS IDC role since he has not achieved any of the major commitments of the RxD( also too much of low morale) and continue ask him to run the show. He has MS material with him, but too much of arrogance.
Certainly rip him out of the tentaive 'MS IT India GM & representative of leadership' post and ideal candidate is Ramkp, who is down to earth, connect with people still.

Sreenivas Simhadri
One great achievement which we can't forget is, Kicking out the great Tarun Sareen. Sreenivas was a PM II 5-6 years back, can we dream about becoming a GM in such short tenure. We can if we dine the GM like Moorthy in our house regularly whenever he visits Redmond and do massage at appropriate times, get the strong old people kicked out and put your boys there.
All Moorthy's aashirvath again. Tarun was running the org ( exception, he's also from GE, but not crap) perfectly and kicked out very bluntly. Sad thing happened for the CoE.
We will wonder how mad Sreenivas and his leadership is, when he continue to nominate the same 'sharepoint assistant' of MS IT India for the each and every sharepoint site he creates for EXPO, goldstar, IT Pro,etc shitting awards. Guys- sharepoint not equals to INNOVATION. find out the real innovation in the process, development, engineering management style, etc some of your own team members are doing and award it. AIT CoE is the only fortunate CoE get to keep lot of the oldies yet, unforunate thing is everyone is struggling despite their loyalty, passion for the company and division.
Though Sreenivas came due to Moorthy's recommendation, he has good intentions most of the time. Greatest problem he has is, he do not know how to execute.
Not a miserable failure, need close coaching and mentoring so that connection with all grass root is made possible to set the org for success. Sreenivas org did not get much impacted during this layoff, except handful of the impacts.
Ted Linnenkamp
Never saw this Mr.American ( he shows off this often) in his room. His first great achievement was kicking out Adhunik Chug who used to wonderfully manage whole of GTS and other non Moorthy's org on dotted manner. He gave undue promotions to all the leads and made them as his confidants.
Good technical guy, but very poor manager/leader. Always go by the Redmond perspective whenever there were issues in the bridge. Hopefully this guy after bumping his levels, will return back to Redmond with an additional feather in his cap 'offshore management experience'.
Great Principal material, but not worth for people management itself( Dont talk about the leadership). Have not seen his org doing anything useful during this tenure together.

Deepinder brought ASM together and made it intact on his own without any of this guy's help.
ASM team seem to be overloaded with work. ( this is how they escaped the wave 2). Yet to deep dive to see number of SRs and amount of time spent by each support FTE to come up with the exact numbers we can cut as fat. Relocate them to GTSC or place them under GTSC role instead of laying off.

Heard some good oldie boys of InfoSec also got their axe (some GE Crap were also cleaned) during this recent lay off along with winding up of some groups reducing their strength. The guy who sells Infosec coming from the US consulting was pointed as reason behind this failure of InfoSec, clean him from the system if that is the case.
Keep the other directs of this org intact ( if possible give the bloated leaders a level downgrade to digest the hit and save some extra money) and bring all of them under Deepinder. Promote Deepinder, Bid farewell to this over prouded Ted guy soon as he is already done with his mission.( bring team together, lay off the additional buffer).

If possible consider aligning this org under the leadership of Sashikumar, GTSC Bangalore as it involves operation,etc.
Ramkumar Pichai
He's the only original leader in MS IT India who came on his own from the grass roots without massage, dinner,etc.
There's no point teaching a known learned person how to run his organization. Unfortunately his well run optimized organization also got impacted.
Make this guy as permanent MS IT India Leader, GM and empower him to transfer, get more end to end ownerships from MS IT Redmond.
Ram- Continue your good work and maintain that talk you do with all your grass roots. This is the only thing which is helping you to maintain the health of your organization ( as like your toned gym worked out body) intact.

MS IT India is still bloated with lot of crappy mid management and senior management, trim that fat. You've the talent, prove it to the some times too political redmond counterparts and help them understand it's not you're taking their jobs away.

GTSC

There are 7 Directors reporting to Sashikumar, along with 5 other bunch of fatty people who can be cut.

• Communication manager
• Manager Business Excellence
• Program Manager
• Executive Assistant
• Business Manager

Effectively business manager role, business excellence manager role, program manager role and communication manager roles can be effectively done by single manager with bunch of vendors under them.

Since Sashikumar rose to the ranks from the grass roots, he always connect with people well. The interesting thing is we can see Sashikumar answering 'bangalore chat' queries some times occassionally. Have not heard it from other biggies of India, they are way above than the grass root people and not often connect with their organizations. This guy is another candidate who is much worth for VP, we can see the material in him always.

The bad part on him, not marketing the GTSC org across rest of the organizations in MS India. Other organization always take the internal transfer candidates whoever came from GTSC for a ride with their regular 'PSS & their guys $ucks' general branding, we can see always people struggling hard to prove their brand first when they move across the board.

Sashi, Marlena Werder & Kathleen Hogan- Don't expand the management resources, ramp up ground level support resources. Get them more help and ownership. Do not worry about the span of control, there are SMSG orgs and teams who are managing 30 people with single manager. Going more on the mid and top management may add lot of float as like other organizations.

One another secret of Sashi is, he empowers his followers and dont micro manage. We can see attrition is way low in his direct, HR, admin, trivial support teams.

Keep up the good work, do not go over board in recruiting. Stay flat as much as possible.

Great thing is, you've not become fat when your neighbours in India were growing without knowing the reality of ownership, projections, etc building their own empires.

GTSC- All of you are doing wonderful work at mid night and odd hours when other business are get to sleep. Continue the same without losing spirit. You were one among the early guys who proved India's talent to Microsoft and also about the Bangalore location advantage.

200 Bluntly RiF'd in India last week

SMSG India and MSIT India got impacted big time, 50/500 & 150/1200 are the laid off employee numbers from both these orgs respectively. Surprising that all the high level leaders get to keep their jobs.

For those whoever got affected by the brutal layoffs starting 6th may to 11th may, our sympathies and prayers are with you and your family. We’re confident that you’re much more capable than those of us who got chance to remain back, only thing it is about the luck and manager whom you reported to since our company really did not adapted any strategy to cut in an efficient manner.

Got all the information for previous post and this post by interviewing 5 of the impacted people over phone, IM, mail and home visit ( 4 MS IT, 1 SMSG; 2 of them came voluntarily sharing their story so that future junta can get ready for further rounds).

As mini-msft-india, I’m not so much convinced because this exercise has happened without any due diligence. Everyone including Gold stars to Rock stars are gone, Tenure at Microsoft didn’t matter, performance didn’t matter, only thing is how well we have created rapport with our manager matters. We are not buying the 'position essentiality matters' for deciding about the elimination of position.

Mediocre to low performers got chance to stay back because they were good in sticking to management a$$ $ucking. Tons of middle management (62-65, Senior/lead, Principal) and upper management (PUM, Director, GM) were not touched and remaining intact.
Since none of the leader’s position are cut owning the accountability behind the MSIT & SMSG India failure, this exercise became an mere eye wash to show case it to wall street and our quirky large investors that we’re making efforts to contain cost.
Board of Directors- Are you guys alive and watching this space?
We had so much confidence on Board of Directors like Dina Dublon and on Bill Gates that they will guide the company in making right decision at this exercise. But ?

Finally we ended up cutting people based on whoever is on manager God’s peril zone without considering any metrics behind it.
Any methodology we have adapted to find out ‘how the position becomes non crucial”
We were hearing instances from the impacted ones that their teams have retained their Redmond counterparts who were not even coming up to achieved/70% mark in previous cycles and not even doing any role, leave the crucial part.

My take after seeing this first official round of layoffs here in India and interacted with many impacted known ones, it seems like taking the usual empowerment this Godly Microsoft Machine has given to it’s so called usual Gods (people managers), innocent people who don’t have loud voice and don’t crap often to their teams with their nonsense mails were hit as targets despite their importance.

Also it seems like in this 2nd round of restructuring, MS wanted to please the senators and made its targets across globe, not much in Redmond.

Now coming back to the ‘employee experience’ on the D day, employees were pinged/ phoned by their manager or skip level manager along with a HR manager or HR business partner. Then during the short meeting 15-30 mins, the manager reads out the readymade script "position elimination, economy, etc blah" story.
Employees are directed to write a 'voluntary' (No pun) resignation letter and then an pre prepared letter accepting that resignation is given in the form of "Acceptance of Resignation and Terms of Disengagement".

I’m leaving it everyone of you about the ethical values what our company is preaching to it’s employees and following other hand in real time.
1. To safeguard from local Indian labour department and it’s fleecing officials to avoid legal actions and controversies, HR and managers were forcing employees to write resignation letters threatening that their future employment with other companies will be spoiled in case if they are not signing it that day. Is it right ethically to threaten the employees those who put their heart and soul for the company?
2. How much dump the local management guys(raviv, nvedula, tonysco, monkey boy,etc) are ?
You’re making 200+ layoffs across India and show casing it as just ‘resignations’ to save the company’s a$$hole and save more paise to please the local masters. Show us the example where employees have such mass resignations in the recent past history of corporate India…
3. Why only base salary as severance? Who came up with this figure? You’re spoiling the smooth financial flow of an employee and his family. Better give a decent severance without stringent constraints and bid farewell in a decent note so that the employee will go and serve as our ambassador still ( check with Intel HR how to execute this , they have done it in a decent way)
4. Why revoking employee access card, technically you’re showing them as “resigned from service“ and they’ve time till the notice period ends. You should provide access to all the facilities to them until their last day as like rest of the benefits.
Don’t worry about morale of the team getting spoiled, kicking someone who’s long enough in the team on the same day without even access cards create hell lot of panic among us than allowing them to talk to us for few more weeks. We’re more concerned about them staying intact with their morale during this tough period of their career transition.
5. Don’t hide, be transparent like big brother IBM. When you try to hide the apple, we are going to deeper extent to connect those who got impacted sympathizing and knowing what has happened in more detailed manner.
6. What harm they will create by getting a decent treatment for few more weeks before they sign off ?

Better solution for the future ‘lean-mean’ exercise is,
Ø Do it diligently and uniformly. Treat the employees as your employees until their last day.
Ø Do not act smart tightening the severance ( only base pay, 1 month /year of tenure etc) what you’re paying, you’ll become “penny wise pound foolish” then.
Ø Co-ordinate all your internal recruitments across the country providing opportunity for the impacted ones first( 1 group in MS IDC hired madly 30 employees/week until last week to get some 150 on board, despite we were firing most eligible ones who can go and fit in there)
Ø Follow a process across the board to identify individuals
o managers are not only Gods who can decide about the employee’s necessity in the team( peers, partner teams, customers, senior management, cross groups, etc)
o put more checks in place
o get more GM, VP level reviews as like promotion, fiscal performance reviews,
o no popularity contest methodology ( we see lot of LOUD people got chance to stay back)

Have roped in couple of different people for next 2 posts, each will come in 2 weeks interval. It will be guest posts by some impacted employee sharing the family side of impacts and one HR managment employee sharing their (mental, physical) pain exercising this.

Tips to MS IDC at this important juncture- Kindly keep watching your backs. Please no hydchat, no games, no pool table, no late night parties, no 11 am show ups . Do this just to save your a$$es, keep writing daily reports to manager keeping informed what’s happening with you. Q4 earnings call is going to can another 300 people in MS IDC. The Lion has tasted the blood now finally and it'll continue to do so for each step of wall street starting here...
Hope atleast we'll try to give a real shot of doing the lean&mean from both ways top to bottom and bottm to top next time when we try this at MS IDC. Stay tuned until post Q4 earnings results on July'23...

Lean&Mean, but DO IT RIGHT !!!

latest update : After finishing the last lay off today on May 11( some of the planned heads were on vacation it seems), latest mail sent by MS India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan thanked everyone in MS India(particulalry HR org coming through out India together in this common crappy exercise) for their support performing this exercise and bluffed saying that MS will continue invest in India. LOL, fire yesterday, hire today
This man who does not have a single clue about how much the grass roots are frustrated needs some coaching for sure.

Mon(k)ey Boy Ballmer meeting all employees tomorrow 13 May Noon in Hyd Campus
People have volley of questions about their future in stake. Some daring guys are planning to ask about Steve's last day plans with Microsoft and it's due date.

Acceptance of Resignation and Terms of Disengagement

Now the letter in discussion goes like this,

Microsoft
May 6 2009

Mr. Innocent,
Address from headtrax

Subject : Acceptance of Resignation and Terms of Disengagement

Dear blah blah ripped off creature,

1. We acknowledge receipt of your letter dated May 6 2009 whereby you have resigned from the services of Microsoft India. (company ). The Company hereby accepts your resignation. Please note that you shall cease to be the employee of the company with effect from June'26(termination date). You will however not be required to attend office until the termination date.

2. We are in the process of calculating your dues under the company policy and in terms of your employment contract and the same will be paid to you on or before the termination date. This will include M% of your target commitment based incentive for period ending June 09, your target being x% amounting to Rs.X/-

In addition, the company at its sole discretion will make an ex gratia payment of Rs.Y to you [which represents {2 months+ 1 month/for every year of tenure @ MS} months of only base salary and is inclusive of your base salary for the month of May 09]. You will continue to receive all applicable benefits till the termination date. However, it is agreed between the company and you that in the event prior to the termination you take up employment with any Microsoft entity, anywhere in the world, you shall not be eligible for the said ex-gratia payment from the company.

3. The company may provide you an out placement assistance [www.right.com]for which you may contact x person at y number for help in finding a suitable position for yourself during the notice period. However, by offering this assistance, the company shall not be, in any manner whatsoever, responsible or liable for finding employment for you.

4. On or before termination date you are also called upon to immediately handover the company's property such as laptop, smart card reader, and mobile phones ("company property") which were given to you by virtue of your employment with the company.


5. NDA crap

6. The contents of this letter shall constitute confidential information for the purpose of NDA and you undertake to keep the same strictly confidential and not to disclose the same to any persons within or outside the company. You are strictly prohibited to contact any vendors, customers, consultants, service providers or past or current employees of the company to discuss or disclose the terms of this Letter Agreement or any matters related or incidental thereto. You shall not speak to any member of the press, whether print, radio, television, internet or howsoever based, or any public or private forum, in respect of the terms of disengagement or your employment with the company. You are being provided certain company property till the termination date and you are required to handle the same judiciously and in a manner set out above and which does not harm or disparage the company in any manner.

7. On the termination date, the company will make payments of your contractual and legal dues and if applicable, of the ex-gratia payment referred in paragraph 2(collectively the “Amount”).

The Amount shall be payable by the company subject to
i. handing over possession of the premises, the company property and Microsoft confidential information to the company
ii. deduction on account of any loss or damages suffered or incurred by the company either in respect of the premises or the car or any company property if such loss or damage is attributable to you
iii. your conduct in complying with the terms and conditions of this letter agreement and
iv. deduction of applicable taxes.
The Amount paid shall constitute full and final payment of all your legal dues by the company to you.

8. In the event you are able to find employment during the notice period with an entity other than a Microsoft entity, upon your request the company may relieve you prior to the termination Date and waive the balance notice period and shall also make payments of the Amount in accordance with this letter prior t the Termination Date, subject to you fulfilling your obligations in respect of return of Company property, premises, car and confidential information, as the case may be.

9. The Terms of this letter agreement shall be biding upon both you and the company.

Kindly sign a duplicate copy of this letter to signify your acceptance of the terms contained herein and return to the undersigned

Yours cheatfully,
For Microsoft India
---- ---
Authorized shooting agent working for Microsoft



Agreed and Accepted

---- -----
Victim Name
May 6 2009

IRM Joke

Thanks for the volunteers from different divisions documenting the messages from the IRM protected mails and sending it for public review.

Tony Scott/Ravi Venkatesan/Rest whoever using IRM at this stage-why IRM ?
What you're scared about ? As Mini-Msft-India, I'm all for a lean and mean organization, but do the exercise graciously so that we're maintaining the goodwill with those employees who're being managed out.
For past couple of months when we drove our guys out to company gates from all our divisions without any decent treatment and severance as 'immediate termination' in the name of performance, then we were not worried about getting media attention.
Now why unnecessarily protect all internal communiques through IRM ?
Don't you think media, political outfits are still sleeping due to the election ? No!
They're waiting for the big bang from us and then hit us there.

Indians have a strong communism flavour in their blood, be careful. Silent revolts of Indians have brought freedom to the country in 1947.

Mr. Tony Scott- What are you trying to prove by sharing all your contact details in all your mail signatures, Transparency ? LOL. If we want to do that, first let's come out in public with all details like 'why, how, when' about this exercise.

TONY SCOTT: New Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

From: Tony Scott
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 11:13 PM IST
To: Microsoft IT-India FTE; Shauna Saffle; Jeff Ramos; Sherry Bisaillon; Lynn Kepl; Laura Temple
Subject: MSIT India Update to Today's Announcements

Following the communication from Steve Ballmer and Kevin Turner, I want to share information about how these announcements impact Microsoft IT in India.

In light of the current global economic situation, we have relooked at several initiatives within the company and have had to re-appropriate our resources. As such, some roles have been impacted in MSIT India. Please be assured that the local HR team will connect with the employees in the impacted roles and work with them to find the best way forward.

I would like to take a moment to ask for your support as we move through this unique time. You have a lot of information to absorb. I expect each of you may have lots of questions about these announcements and how we intend to move forward. I encourage you to connect with your manager and leaders. Nagender Vedula will be hosting a brief all hands meeting in the next couple of days to answer questions and offer more perspective. Further, Neville Rademeyer will be flying to India over the weekend to be onsite early next week and looks forward to personally hosting another all hands with the teams.

I am proud of the work that you do, and will continue to do for the benefit of Microsoft, our customers, and our partners. MSIT India is central to our overall MSIT strategy-and I Appreciate your understanding, dedication, and continued focus, and hope you share my optimism for a very bright future for Microsoft IT and the company.


Tony Scott
Chief Information Officer
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond WA 98052-6399
425 707 7407 O 425 591 2813 M 425 936 7329 F

TONY SCOTT: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

We are eliminating some positions today as part of this company-wide effort to closely manage costs. Some employees in MSIT will learn their jobs are being eliminated throughout the day.

While most of the job eliminations we are announcing today are in the U.S., we will be eliminating jobs outside of the country, and we will work in accordance with specific country procedures and in compliance with their legal requirements when doing so.

For employees outside the U.S., local leadership teams will be providing information about the local process and potential impact on area teams, if any.

LISA BRUMMEL: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

In late January we announced plans to eliminate up to 5,000 jobs at Microsoft. Today’s announcement is part of that ongoing process.

As managers this certainly presents challenges for you and your organizations, whether you are experiencing the eliminations directly or indirectly. As I did in January, I ask you to support your colleagues, peers, and leadership teams as we work through the steps necessary to get jobs, people, and projects aligned in the company.

I want to emphasize the importance of your role as managers today. We have asked leaders across the company to minimize the amount of e-mail sent today, as employees told us the e-mail volume in January was distracting.

As a result, leaders have agreed to streamline their e-mail communications. Outside the US, we ask that you defer to communications by local leaders and not send or forward U.S. announcements to international teammates.

Rather than sending e-mail, we encourage you to meet with your employees face-to-face or via Live Meeting, where possible, to address their questions.To help you do this, we have provided resources for you on HRWeb.

One learning we took from January’s announcement is that managers who reviewed the materials found them to be useful and effective and had a more positive experience than those who did not. I strongly encourage you to review this and to ask others to do the same.

Thank you for your support.
Lisa

RAVI VENKATESAN: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

From: Ravi Venkatesan
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 7:44 PM IST
To: One Microsoft in India (FTEs)
Cc: India Leadership Team
Subject: Update

Dear Team,

I Hope that you have had a chance to read the email from Steve Ballmer and Kevin Turner about our continued efforts to realign resources and control expenses.

In the recent weeks, we have taken a careful look at every aspect of our business in order to make the necessary adjustments to align our resources with the right short-term and long term business priorities. The fundamental reset of the economy has created a new reality for the company and we have to take the appropriate and necessary actions to create a more focused organization.

I am saddened to share that about one percent of the net rolls across India will be impacted by the realignment. While the impact is across almost all business units, the highest impact is across MSIT and SMSG.

Please rest assured that India remains a priority for Microsoft, both from a talent and a market perspective. We will continue to hire and create employment opportunities in line with the recovery and growth of the economy and make strategic investments which are best suited to the current economic environment.

These are difficult times and we are deeply concerned for our colleagues who find their roles impacted by this situation. We are committed to doing whatever we can do, including helping them find appropriate assignments either in India or internationally.

Thank you for all your hard work and commitment in these challenging times.

India Leadership Team

KEVIN TURNER Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

From: Kevin Turner
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 6:37 PM IST
To: WW Sales, Marketing & Services Group
Subject: FW: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

As Steveb’s mail indicates, today Microsoft is continuing to make adjustments to our company in response to the macroeconomic environment. As most of you would be aware, our Q3 performance brought our first quarterly revenue decline in our history and a decline in year over year profit by 32%. As announced in January, Microsoft will take responsible action to manage our cost structure in the current environment and unfortunately these actions will impact the worldwide SMSG organization.

This current business situation is unlike anything we have seen in our lifetime and we must continue to keep a close watch on the constantly evolving and fluid environment and align our resources and business priorities accordingly. While the decisions are painful, Microsoft is striving to take responsible business action that will continue to position us for the future and do what is right for our customers & partners. Decisions like this are always very hard to make, and I want to assure you that your leadership team takes this responsibility and these choices very seriously.

Today, and over the next few days, the communications regarding the impacted areas of our organization will be coming from your local leadership teams. We feel it is important that each area receives an update on the situation from their local leadership so all questions can be asked and concerns can be addressed. I ask that you are sensitive and empathetic to those who are being impacted and please offer your support and assistance where possible, knowing that this is a very difficult situation.

Finally, thank you for continuing the hard work you are doing in serving our customers, partners and each other.

KT

STEVEB: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2009 6:13 PM IST
To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: Update: Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs

In January, in response to the global economic downturn, I announced our plan to adjust the company’s cost structure through spending reductions and job eliminations. Today, we are implementing the second phase of this plan.

This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard.

Today’s action includes positions in the United States and in a number of countries around the world. In the U.S., affected employees will be notified directly by their managers today. In other countries, local leadership teams will provide more specific information about the impact to their organizations.

With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it’s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives.

As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.

For those of you directly affected by today’s announcement, I want to thank you for your contribution to Microsoft and assure you that we will continue to provide support as we did during the previous job eliminations.

And for everyone across the company, I want to reemphasize how much I appreciate the way you have pulled together to help the company respond to this difficult economic environment. There’s no doubt that these are very challenging times. But together, we are making the right choices to ensure that we will continue to deliver great products and position ourselves for strong future growth and profitability.

Thank you for your continued hard work, commitment, and focus.

Steve

MSR- The Ray of Hope in Microsoft India

Jan 2005 , when the new year 2005 started there was a new success chapter called 'MSR India' also got opened in this emerging market in Microsoft's book of record.
What a 65 people organization can do ? Microsoft Research India is the answer !

This is one best example people should learn that empire building is not going to take us and the company anywhere, though it may give goosebumps immediately it'll ditch in the near short term. ( Ex: MoorthyU tripled MS IT India headcount in a year and went in thin air in the same year). Fact: Only the deliveries speak for themselves and take us long way.

Most of the employees in India have highest regards for MSR Managing Director Dr. P Anandan and Assistant Managing Director Kentaro Toyama , they should walk across Microsoft offices at Mumbai, Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Bangalore teaching rest of the business leaders, employees how a organization can be still run and mean in the same time.

This interview video of MSR India and Videos of the employees talk about their groups, work, and projects are must watch to get an idea what's happening with Microsoft Research.

TechXChange is the only real 'original' technical event happen in India which is nothing but the brain child of MSR, though it happens along with the collaboration of MS IDC and some other events like TechVista .

They're the only one organization in India who still connect with common people by The MSR India blog .Most of the other organizations in India do not even know what is the benefit of connecting to the common man.

Did any other organization in India can talk about the word transparency and have any guts to do that ? Like publishing Microsoft's Research spending on Display- Microsoft Reasserts its India Focus

Across globe, MSR stays ahead of the curve. Proof: MSR TechFest held recently, where the common man got an opportunity to see cool prototypes like WorldWide Telescope and Microsoft Songsmith.

Only problem with research is, it will take lot of time to monetize on the research work they are executing. But we hope the SLT is aware of that already and continue making right investments in MSR across globes.

Request to Rick Rashid & Craig Mundie: For God sake, please do not go on recruiting spree opening up research centers across every damn cities in India where our Indian political muscles are fluxing with us a lot to open a shop. If we do that it'll become one another division like MS IDC, SMSG & MS IT. --or --Who knows when we ramp up too much of the research pool here in India too spreading across too many cities without many goals, it may become 'one another entity' like Microsoft Research Cambridge (1997), Microsoft Research Silicon Valley(2001) and Microsoft Research New England (2008) . Though we claim that we went and set up shops across rest of the US to tap the talent pool available there and abundant research academia, etc rest of the Microsoft is not believing that story. They believe it is just to accommodate the senior research talent whom we've in Redmond to help retain them for long term and relocate to their home states lying across the streets of those research centers. This kind of knee jerk actions to cater to the big boys will fluctuate from our original intended goals.

Time for some requests(success tips) to make this small success story as big.

1. Do not ramp up the headcount unless otherwise essential, stay flat. You're right there on the 'fitness curve', if you go little above you're going to get fat and unhealthy. Then we may recommend you also for a 'lean & mean' exercise.


2. Do more cool research targeting end customer and connect with customer often. IDC, IT and SMSG do not have time for the customers now and all of them lost their customer vision long back while building their empires.


3. Do not go and set up shop anywhere else in India, whatever compelling reason it may be.


4. Continue the academia collaboration.


5. Invest more on the research internships, post doc researcher recruitments.

way to go, Continue all your good work Microsoft Research India.

You are the only ray of hope India has so that we can prove the talent behind this too old( ~2000 years) cultured country to the new vibrant, young (~200 years) cultured country's company Bosses to ramp up their businesses here in India in an efficient and planned way.

SMSG India- Wazup with RaviV ?

Do not know what Mr.Ravi Venkatesan brought when he joined Microsoft except the manufacturing experience. All of us accept he's again IIT, blah, etc . But great leader ?

Not really !!!

Now everyone in SMSG have this question in their mind, "Ravi is worth continuing as CHAIRMAN & CORPORATE VP, INDIA ? "

This Cummins India Alumnus joined Microsoft as Chairman, GM since 3'Feb'2004. Any major achievement he has personally achieved here in India during this 5 years ?

Did he reached this VP position from GM level on his own efforts or just through the love fest tact ?

Particularly whether any sales number went up due to his personal efforts, any government partnership with Indian Government to tackle Piracy and reap out benefits for the company from that initiative ?

Now let's dig deep about Ravi's organization..

1. Latif Nathani heading Unlimited Potential Group( 2 directors + 1 Head, 1 lead)
2. Meenu Handa heading PR & IMAGE(2 leads, 2 Managers, 1 PM)
3. Rajan Anandan heading OEM with 1 Director, Public Sector with 1 GM, DPE with 1 GM, SMS&P with 1 GM, ENTERPRISE with 1 GM, MARKETING & OPS (BMO) with 1 GM, ENT. SERVICES with 1 Group Director, GSI with 1 Director)
4. S. Balaji heading Chief of Staff
5. Sonia Gupta as executive assistant

Rajan's org is too bloated and have huge potential for trimming in overall Ravi's org.

• Merge OEM, Public sector, DPE, SMS&P and bring under 1 GM
• Merge Enterprise, Marketing&Ops(BMO), Enterprise Services, GSI and bring them under 1 GM
• Except 2 GMs, we can show door to remaining all leaders in Rajan's organization.
• We have too many directors in the second level who have no work except filing expenses and continue travelling without any goal and efficacy.

We heard Balaji is relation of Ravi and that's the reason he got the 'Chief of Ravi Empire' role. This is not time for our love festivals, so no need to spare him under the cuts.

Overall we can spare Ravi still since he drove the One Microsoft India theme well compared to all his other colleagues Srini, Moorthy, Sashi under the agenda given to him.
In the ground grass root level SMSG is under staffed in India and in management levels (M2, M3) it is too bulky here in India, management people are more in number than those ones who're executing.

Bring back Ravi's old manager Sanjay Mirchandani to guide him back and focus if Ravi is not accepting this trimming proposal.
Sanjay used to be Microsoft president, Asia-Pacific before he signed off to EMC^2. He used to have a serious disciple Mr. Arumugam Saravanan, excellent leader who setup shop for MS IT India and then setup MGSI, 2 successful ventures of India.

Rip the so called campus hires across SMSG, bunch of people who do not have single clue about the customer. Do not sack experienced people, as dealing with customer can not be taught in single day like technology.

Jean-Philippe Courtois listening ?
Congratulations from everyone in the grass roots for finishing 25 years

Future of Microsoft India Development Center(IDC)

We've finished our 10 years of operations in India recently, are we happy about our performance ? No ! certainly not at all.

Srini is getting corrupted these days joining the back street MoorthyU, AmitCircar and RaviV. Lost his own credibilities which he's known before. Where's the innovation if we're not concentrating on it on a day to day basis ? We hear them only when Soma comes down to visit us in the name of Innovation day, etc as other cooked up stories as well.

Whether Srini is just staying to get his 1000s of stocks to vest and then leave ?

Does Soma know about the low morale of all the teams here due to lack of vision or focus in the management ?

some heart felt suggestions to Srini now....

• Hiring from premium campus alone is not going to help our org in the long run
• encourage the techie loyalists who are there with the organization for long time now( joined IDC and looking for opportunity to contribute more and grow, not the relo fellows)
• STOP hiring from outside for management roles those who do not have single clue about what is management, MS culture, delivery style, etc
• Look for talent in MS IT India, MGSI, SMSG, MSR, GTSC, Tap the good talent by appropriate encouragement of cross division movement( certainly do not poach).
• Grow the internal talent
• Award regularly, religiously for INNOVATION through placing appropriate mechanisms
• Get the ownership end-end so that grass root engineers are not randomized to make the transition happen on their own risk and effort
• CONNECT WITH THE CUSTOMER
• shed your ego, talk to the 'first and best customer' MS IT sitting in your next door
• shut down all GIVING relevant activity until economy revives
• Introduce IDC Management Score Card, make it public
• Make the organization follow more AGILE(scrum) engineering practices
• cut down all REDMOND trips across the board, use live meeting, round table
• bring more accountability to PM roles( I see them roaming around all the time without work, just randomizing other dev, test functions), build the PM excellence more strongly
• share best practices, run a Monthly best practice call
• STB is doing 42 projects, a grass roots innovation concept. Emulate that
• collaborate more with academia, bring out more research sense, Envision for future to really innovate
• collabrate with Enterprise customers like Infy, Wipro, TCS more to know their feedback after using our products. Be a messenger and feedback collector for all our products and create a team to collate this feedback to Redmond Product Teams
• participate in the local Customer Show Cases more seriously
• CUT THE CRAP @ all levels DILIGENTLY, GRACIOUSLY by giving enough notice with decent severance package

out of the below 29 groups in IDC, except EM Labs and Veda none of the teams are reporting to Srini anymore. What's the use of paying Srini in crores of Indian rupees to lead up a big organization at this tough economy ?

1. WLC IDC by Perraju Bendapudi
2. WinSE by Pankaj Lunia
3. RD Virtualization by Jaideep Ganguly
4. NIS India EAP-WINS team by Vijay Mamtani
5. CRM by Nagesh Pabbisetty
6. Unified communications by Nagesh Pabbisetty
7. MS Learning by JPS Kohli
8. MBD by Rajiv Kumar
9. IDC OBA by Hariprasad
10. MIW IDC by Prashant Gupta
11. SP Express by Ganesh Pandey
12. IndiaDev Windows by Amit Chatterjee
13. Data & Storage Platform (SQL) by Sanjay Anand
14. SQL CE by Sanjay Anand
15. Velocity by Seshu Adunuthula
16. SQL Developer & Manageability by Balaji Rathakrishnan
17. WWLG by Anil Bhansali
18. WWAN by PArtha Gosh
19. NetSec
20. Adcenter by Avi Saxena
21. Mobile Platform & Tools by Sudeep Bharati
22. JScript PU
23. PET
24. EM Labs by Niranjan Nayak
25. ENG IDC by Pankaj Lunia
26. EE
27. DPM by Sundar Srinivasan
28. biztalk by Balasubramanian Sriram
29. Veda