CEO Steve Ballmer had a momentous Thursday. The head of Microsoft pulled the trigger for a titanic reorganization early yesterday and then took to media and analyst conference call later in the day.
One of the biggest questions that arise when a company as large as Microsoft changes it overall structure is whether or not some of its employees will be laid off. But Ballmer confirmed that the 90,000 plus workers of Microsoft can rest easy as no layoffs are planned.
In fact, judging by previous reports, Microsoft could be hiring more people — as multiple reports in the recent past have suggested. For instance, the company is looking to hire thousands of new workers to help with Windows Phone and even its cloud platform in China.
This particular conference call was different than the quarterly financial call the company holds to discuss earnings. Almost all the newly named Executive Vice Presidents were present and took questions from analysts and journalists.
When asked, how this reorganization will affect the company’s financials, Amy Hood, Microsoft’s chief financial officer said:
“This is really about setting us up for long-term profit growth.”
Steve Ballmer, on the other hand, repeated much of what he wrote in his memo to staff earlier in the day and said that his vision is to transform the company into, what he calls a “one team” approach for all the products and services.
Nevertheless, while this increased focus is always a good thing, it is not always an easy task, particularly in the computing technology sector. But large technology companies have pulled this off before, and Microsoft seems pretty enthusiastic to see it through.
