Microsoft merges HD-DVD division with two others

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by JohnGalt

In my experience this sort of reshuffling / repackaging of business units more often than not precedes a quiet shutdown or sale of that portion of the assets. The deadweight along with those making more than they're worth to the remainder of the business are shuffled in then released. Not universally true of course but that's how it often seems to work and obviously MS R&D will be so Windows-centric as to be nearly worthless to anyone outside the Redmond campus.

I'd interpret Amir's being moved out of this boondoggle as his having relatively more valuable skills than those who are still stuck to the tar baby.

The exact same thing happened to my sister. Several months back the company she worked for merged several departments. Then, in a few months they laid some of them off, then more and finally she got laid off just a month before Christmas and the whole dept is gone.