Reuters: Technology News: Microsoft axes freelancers, contract writers at MSN

Reuters: Technology News Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Book your hotel early for a discount! You can reap the rewards with great discounts at participating Pullman, M Gallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Mercure, ibis and Formule 1 hotels. From our sponsors

Microsoft axes freelancers, contract writers at MSN Sep 12th 2013, 20:14 Tweet Share this Email Print The Microsoft logo is seen at their offices in Bucharest March 20, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Bogdan Cristel SEATTLE | Thu Sep 12, 2013 4:14pm EDT SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is laying off dozens of contract and freelance writers from its MSN news and entertainment portal as the giant software company seeks to reshape itself as a devices and services company. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the layoffs but declined to specify the number or comment further. A person familiar with the situation said the cuts could affect more than 100 people in all. The pruning of MSN writers, who contribute end edit columns, blogs and features to the site, comes just two months after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced a radical reorganization of the company, which is only now starting to take effect. Microsoft's online services unit, chiefly consisting of the Bing search engine and MSN portal, is in line for a shake-up as it has never been profitable and has lost almost $3 billion in the last two years alone. Some investors have pressed for a sale of the unit. The MSN site has been stagnating for the past year, with its U.S. monthly unique visitors stuck at about 116 million, while the more popular Yahoo Inc and AOL Inc portals are growing faster, according to figures from industry research firm Comscore. Microsoft beefed up its MSN news operation only a year ago in preparation for the launch of Windows 8. The company wanted to grow its ability to generate online content after last summer's sale of its 50 percent stake in news website MSNBC.com to longtime partner NBCUniversal, now majority-owned by Comcast Corp. (Reporting by Bill Rigby; editing by Andrew Hay) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions