What is Microsoft going to do with all those Vista Employees?

Microsoft recently shipped Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007. It's almost certain that the teams behind these products are hard at work on the next versions. But Vista is starting to ship too, and it seems unlikely that Microsoft has a vision of another tremendous five year effort to knock our socks off with yet another OS. Some believe Vista is an end-of-the-line product, in fact.

Many of the people who have developed Vista, planned it, coordinated it, designed it, written it, marketed it, documented it and tested it will be needed to support it. Bug reports, incompatibilities and user issues will keep many of these same people busy for about two years. But what of the rest? Does Microsoft really have lots of new work for them to do?

2007 seems like a good time for Microsoft to undo its last expansion, in which they became a bloated company with too many so-so employees. That “undo” would lay off a ton of people, and MSC will be lucky if they can keep most of the good ones.

Will MSC try the big “undo”? Let's watch for a few months and see.