A Tech blog called Fudzilla announced on December 30, that Micosoft will be laying off 17% of its workforce, which comes out to be about 15,000 people.

Now, this is interesting because they don’t use the terms “speculate” “”could”, “might” or “possibly” to describe the layoff.  The exact quote is “The rumor that Microsoft was set to lay off people on January 15th, 2009 is no longer a rumor but a fact. Staff at Microsoft have been informed that the company is readying major layoffs to its worldwide operations and it’s not a small cut, either.”

Meanwhile Henry Blodget of Silicon Valley Insider Reporter reports today that Fudzilla is just that, full of Fud.  He says “A cut of this magnitude seems highly unlikely, although the targeted areas do make sense.”

I don’t know much about Fudzilla, but I do know Henry Blodget is on the speed dial of every person in Microsoft PR.  So it’s liekly that Blodget is repeating something he’s been told.  Either Blodget is lying, is being lied to, or Fudzilla received some faulty info.  

On Jan 22, we’ll see who is closer to the truth, the blog that originally broke a story, or a reporter breifed by a PR team.  Should be interesting.