Microsoft to shed 5,000 jobs? Just sack the XBox division.

Microsoft has had a worse than expected quarter and because of their low earnings are having to lay off 5,000 employees.  This should be an omen to Microsoft that they need to focus on their core strengths and get out of money losing markets like video games and music players.  The XBox, last I heard anyway, is still being sold at a loss and the Zune never really took off.  Their crazy attempt at online ads has never yielded any fruit and the attempts to buy Yahoo – who is failing at the moment – just boggles the mind.  Clearly this is a company that has lost its way and needs to regroup before they lose the whole thing.  Layoffs will have to happen if they were to shed their money losing enterprises, but at least those layoffs would make sense for the survival of the company.  Microsoft needs to focus all of their attention on the Windows operating system and Office, keep the game publishing group because games like Halo do make money and can be sold for other platforms.