
Microsoft to cut off all 'external staff' after 18 months - kjhughes
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/internal-memo-microsoft-cut-external-staff-18-months-requiring-six-month-break/
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patja
In many ways this is bigger news than the layoffs. At Microsoft vendors are
supposedly accountable for managing their own workforce and providing
milestone or service level based work products for pay, not staff
augmentation. Of course many managers game the system and many ex-employees
come right back as vendor staff.

This seems to be aimed at getting the company off of the vendor addiction. If
successful, it seems reasonable to expect another round of layoffs of the
couple thousand employees whose primary responsibility is setting up and
managing vendors. When your "team" is over half vendor staff, your job isn't
building software, marketing, or event planning: it is setting up and managing
vendor contracts and measuring vendor performance.

It is also worth noting that this is US-only. Tata, Infosys, Wipro etc. need
not worry too much...

