Summary: Microsoft decides to bury Works; legal staff laid off at Microsoft

IN RESPONSE to requests from a reader, we recently put together lists regarding Microsoft layoffs and dead products.

There are some new additions to these. The first is the death of Microsoft Works.

Microsoft scraps Works

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Microsoft Works has been around for more than 20 years and came preinstalled on home PCs. It was not a bad product other than the fact you had to save everything in the Works format.

The Vole has been muttering about killing off the software for over two years, which is probably why it has been largely ignored.

Microsoft has spoken about putting advertisements in Works; but instead, Microsoft will put these advertisements in a future version of Office, which will not properly support ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Google is by all means killing this cash cow along with Free software like OpenOffice.org. From BNET:

Mednieks noted that Google also uses standards-based technology across all its products and platforms: Java, Linux, Webkit, SQLite, and Eclipse.

One of our readers, Ziggyfish, has also alerted us about this report.

Microsoft's legal department has seen its legal budget cut by 15% over the last 18 months, leading to a 5% reduction in headcount, according to the software giant's general counsel, Brad Smith.

The Microsoft 'press' is trying to play down the seriousness of this.

There's no indication if the 450 lawyers who were axed are part of the 5K that Microsoft was going to let go, but I'm guessing it is.

Microsoft relies heavily on lawyers and marketing people. Their elimination (even in part) is bound to have considerable impact on the company's overall performance. ⬆

"Working behind the scenes to orchestrate "independent" praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy's, is a key evangelism function during the Slog."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]