But like if your company is making money hand over foot you didn't typically cut staff by 25%. You could just as easily do a hiring freeze and get out ahead of it. I mean if your profit metric is showing all green and growing you have to be really cold to say we need to fire 1/4 people now why? (to maximize shareholders short term value of course)

They aren't cutting staff because they made a ton of money. They are cutting staff because they see trouble on the horizon and are positioning themselves for that. Layoffs are rarely lagging indicators. They are more often predictors of trouble coming. This bubble will explode, MSFT wants to survive it. Thats all there is to it.