Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Lays Off Azure Staff and Much More, Spins These Layoffs as “Optimization Strategy”

They always have excuses and ridiculous tales ready to promptly tell the gullible

Hands



Summary: An in-depth but concise analysis of the recent "layoffs wave" at Microsoft; it's a lot more serious than they want us to think, with profound cuts that go much deeper and further than initially reported or acknowledged

MICROSOFT is not a growth company. It has been laying off workers for over a decade and buying all sorts of companies like Nokia that became "write-offs" (causing the company report massive losses, nor profits, quite a few times).



Microsoft Peter used to spread lies about their financial results every quarter up until his arrest for sexually abusing children. Even when Microsoft announced layoffs he would post Microsoft's 'prepared' statements (lies basically). A company can hide losses some of the time, but not all the time. When it admits losses it wants to make sure there's some good excuse for these.

Seeing the latest silence about Microsoft layoffs (employees were gagged about it and most weren't even told about it, based on what they've told us), we've decided to do some further research into it. This article is merely an outline of our findings.

"Microsoft Peter used to spread lies about their financial results every quarter up until his arrest for sexually abusing children."Firstly, let's consider the Microsoft spin; marketing and PR drones inside the media give us a lot of insight into that. It's all about the face-saving strategy. Microsoft's propagandist Mary Jo Foley does the typical propaganda at ZDNet right about now; her headline is calling the layoffs “usual” and “fewer than usual” (as a Microsoft mouthpiece would claim; this isn't some annual ritual). The company's spokesman called it “optimization strategy” (in the past they used to call layoffs "reorg"). This site says "Business Insider reports that jobs have been cut in the Microsoft Azure division," as we noted here before. Well, Azure is a failure and a fraud (or Ponzi scheme), according to insiders. What Microsoft tells shareholders about Azure is a lie (performance is being faked, hoping that false perception of 'growth' and 'health' will help suck businesses into this Clown Computing trap). It's a lock-in-based long-term strategy. "There is also talk of layoffs for Azure, the cloud division that brings the company billions of dollars in revenues," Brian Adam wrote.

Profits or just revenue, Brian?

Not the same thing.

If it's so profitable, then why the layoffs? Why are datacenters being shut? Remember that Microsoft was always a company of lawyers and predatory legal contracts (Bill's dad is a lawyer; Bill Gates studied law, albeit he never graduated). They use NDAs to silence their CFOs regarding financial misconduct and the sacked staff too is being gagged (to defend the lies; they try to discredit the few who speak out, sometimes they even bribe them to shut up, as is widely documented).

The above also says that "Microsoft has already been making cuts to its business over the past few months. In terms of its games business, it most notably closed streaming service Mixer just four years after acquiring it."

"Microsoft hoped people would not notice all these layoffs. But sacked employees used encrypted communication software to speak to journalists (what's left of them), so right now Microsoft is belittling their reports."We've taken stock of at least four rounds of layoffs since June and it turns out that Microsoft isn't even done sacking MSN workers. "Microsoft is reportedly making more job cuts at MSN," this report says, echoing the "HEY HI" (AI) spin. As if it's OK to lay off staff because of some buzzword.

"Microsoft announced the closure of all the physical stores to focus exclusively on online sales," Brian Adam said. Again... pure spin.

These closures alone (about 100 stores) would be over 1,000 people.

We're accustomed to this sort of spin, having seen it at the European Patent Office (EPO), Novell and other institutions that we studied very closely. We speak to people from the EPO and from Microsoft, so we have insight (but cannot elaborate too much; source protection first). We also spoke to Novell insiders, who gave us tips and information.

Microsoft hoped people would not notice all these layoffs. But sacked employees used encrypted communication software to speak to journalists (what's left of them), so right now Microsoft is belittling their reports. As one might expect.

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Starts 2026 a Much Smaller Company (Not Homage to Gerstner)
People who get bluewashed out of their job (or bluewashed into unemployment) are gagged by NDAs
Microsoft XBox Having a "Dog Ate My Homework" Moment: No New Console Until 3 Years From Now... Because "RAM Prices"
Who will ever remember this in 2028? Nobody.
Gemini End of Year Capsules Tally (Based on Lupa) Shows About 10% Growth
What a difference a year makes
Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why Chatbots Became Dishonesty on Top of Dishonesty (Hiding Usage of Dishonest Salads of Words)
new article from CyberShow
Jean-Slop Van Damme and the Art of Bull--- Code
it's saving neither time nor money
 
Links 31/12/2025: Cheeto Pushing for More Wars, ‘Security is a Shared Responsibility’
Links for the day
Enshittification of Postal Services Isn't Technological Advancement
Societies that say the aim is to "go digital" and eliminate paper trail aren't advanced; they're moving backwards
XBox is Likely Dead Already, But the Threat It Posed to Us All for Two Decades Isn't Over
"the Xbox was never about gaming and merely served as a test bed for DRM in commodity systems."
Ahead of 2026 Mass Layoffs at Microsoft the Tree Gets Shaken to See Who 'Falls' (Resigns/Retires)
"We had a quiet meeting last week about budget realignment. No one said layoffs, but it’s clear where the focus is shifting."
Almost 6,5000 Pages in 2025, Aiming Higher in 2026
if we can keep focused, then quantity will increase
Gemini Links 31/12/2025: New Resolution, Reverse Hexdump, and Programming Languages
Links for the day
Links 31/12/2025: Nvidia Faces Bubble-Bursting Moment, Saudi Oil Money Pumped Into Chatbots to Keep the Energy Waste Going (Circular Financing Again)
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's First Talk in a U.S. College Since 2018
Greetings from Georgia Tech!
EPO People Power - Part XX - Why António Campinos Chose to Put His Cokehead Friend on 'Sick Leave'
EPO Cocainegate will be covered for months to come
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Gemini Links 30/12/2025: FreeBSD, Gemlogs, and Xobaque
Links for the day
Get Ready for Gigantic XBox Layoffs at Microsoft (Much Bigger Than in 2025)
he unionisation drive is a sign workers already expect this
Concern Trolls: Stop Criticising Poor Gerstner Because Now He's Dead. Reality Check: Gerstner Has Found a Trick for Dodging Tax on His Hundreds of Millions in Wealth.
Maybe even billions in wealth
Samoa: GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Rose to Around 11%
based on Web access data from Samoa
DnD: Debian and Drugs
There will soon be some interesting new information about Debian
A Conundrum of Privacy/Surveillance: Will You Give Them a Stool Sample to "Feel Humane"?
What if skinnerboxes in South Korea also required that people provide urine and stool samples?
Nope, There's No Twitter "Successor"
There's a lot of horrible abuse going on in social control media
A Calm Year in IRC is a Good Year for IRC
Next year IRC will turn 38 (in August) and in 2028 it'll turn 40, just like the FSF did a couple of months ago
Slopfarms Covering Up for "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella" After a Terrible Performance and a Terrible Year at Microsoft
How to cause many to resign/retire, hence not be counted as "layoffs"
IBM Was Never Saved, It Has Been a Downhill Journey for Decades Already
Gerstner wasn't a tech person but a fiscal butcher
Some GNU Joiners in Geminispace
Jose E. Marchesi (known for GNU poke and a bunch of other things) adopted Gemini Protocol
IBM Seems to be Doing to HashiCorp What It Did to Red Hat (Many Key People Leaving)
"Today marks my last day at HashiCorp, wrapping up an incredibly rewarding 5-year journey"
State of the Slop, Day 364
How does Phoronix feel about Google promoting slopfarms that 'rewrite' its stories and slap slop images on top?
Links 30/12/2025: "Durian Tsunami" and "Unneeded Surgeries"
Links for the day
Links 30/12/2025: Social Control Media Detox, Rage Against Slop Wasting People's Productive Capacities
Links for the day
Reality Check About IBM's Louis Grestner, Slopfarms Say He Was IBM CEO for 30 Years!
It is "hallucinating" (lying)
Debt as the New Currency?
Rich people get richer because they take money from the rest of us, if not directly then by compelling us (collectively) to borrow money at a national level, then "invest" in them
EPO People Power - Part XIX - "Berenguer Has Known of Campinos' Substance Abuse First Hand For a Long Time"
"You rightfully claimed that Berenguer is Campinos' protegee"
Gemini Links 30/12/2025: Quitting Coffee, Apartment by the Beach, and Strange Retail Ethics
Links for the day
Nintendo and Sony Outsold Microsoft XBox by 15:1!
The mass layoffs indicate Microsoft is aware of this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 29, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, December 29, 2025
Slopfarm: Firing 35,000 Employee is "Saving the Company"
"Big Blue" is getting smaller all the time
Slopfarms About the "Linux CEO" Linus Torvaldos [sic]
nowadays NVIDIA builds and helps build a giant Ponzi scheme
Vista 11 is "10" (Ten Percent)
Some months ago Microsoft openly admitted that it had lost (shed off) hundreds of millions of Windows users
Dealing With Online Pogroms
lawfare funded by third parties
The Year Apple Would Rather Forget
We await further stumbles and falls from Apple (in 2026)
"EU's reform agenda threatens to erase a decade of digital rights"
This is really sad for those of us who spent decades promoting and boosting/advocating the EU
IBM Layoffs in India, More Coming Soon, Say Apparent Insiders
Threads regarding IBM layoffs
Gemini Links 29/12/2025: Earlier "Happy New Year 2026" and "Dead Archivist Society"
Links for the day
Links 29/12/2025: Putin Critic Sergei Udaltsov Imprisoned, Cloudflare’s Outages Discussed
Links for the day
LLMs Are Inherently Parasitic, We Need to Treat Them Accordingly
a maintenance burden for those who possess actual intelligence
Links 29/12/2025: Bottled Water Considered Harmful, Cheetos Promoting Nazis in Europe
Links for the day
EPO People Power - Part XVIII - European Patent Office "Paints Itself as Progressive While Literally Being Represented by Cokeheads"
To what length/s will German authorities and media (not just in Germany) go to protect the EPO's "precious image"?
What IBM Will Do to Red Hat in the Coming Year or Years
This won't end up well for GNU/Linux as a whole
Not Turning in His Grave: When People Die, Their Corporate Destruction Becomes a "Turnaround"
All he did was mass layoffs - a tradition that has not ended since then
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 28, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, December 28, 2025
Louis Gerstner Has Died, His Legacy of Mass Layoffs at IBM Hasn't
Hagiographies will follow. They will say he "saved" IBM.
Links 29/12/2025: The Sunday Routine, Limits of Memory, and Gemini Vocabulary
Links for the day