Microsoft on diet

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, has officially announced that the company will try to save around 1 billion US$ this year. To do so, they will reduce cost without firing any employees. So, social protection and other advantages of Microsoft employees would be affected.
Now, when you realize that Microsoft is generating as much profit than the year budget of some countries in the world; one can think that Microsoft could use its employees in its current legal battles with different institution (EU, ...).