Summary: More layoffs, delays, and massive losses for Microsoft's co-founder

Yesterday we wrote about Microsoft's sacking of lawyers, which Business Insider claims to be a result of the budget being cut by 15%.

Microsoft layoffs are nothing exceptional these days and neither are dead divisions or products. But on top of that, we are seeing many more delays recently. A few days ago we wrote about how Microsoft had delayed more product releases over the past week or two and now we find this report from IDG.

The company said Thursday that it’s delaying the release of Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 (formerly Forefront Client Security) until the second half of 2010. The release of the anti-malware software for Windows desktops and servers had been expected to come in the first half of 2010.

For what it's worth, Microsoft is not the only company feeling the pinch. Its co-founder, Paul Allen, is reportedly losing billions on top of him seeing his company go bankrupt.

But the main caveat is that the company was started by Allen, of course. The man lost a cool $5.5 billion the past year according to Forbes, about one third of his net worth as estimated in 2008, so maybe he’s simply offloading some of his assets to make up for it.

Microsoft has lost a lot of its value (market cap) as well, especially over the past year. This ought to provide a relief to GNU/Linux and Free software, which Microsoft is constantly attacking. ⬆