“Microsoft axes jobs amid phone woes ” Shropshire Star

It would cut almost 7,800 jobs, which is about 7 percent of its workforce, maximum of which will be done in the phone hardware business.

The moves are meant to help Microsoft “better focus and align resources”, the Redmond, Wash., company said.

“We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem”, Nadella said in Wednesday’s announcement.

“I am committed to our first-party devices including phones,” Nadella wrote in the memo. It will also take on a restructuring charge totaling between $750 million and $850 million.

The job cuts are a part of an aggressive restructuring of Microsoft’s business, following the massive losses it has had to bear at the cost of competitors like Apple (iOS) and Google (Android), when pegged against its windows smartphones. Recently, he outlined his vision for the company in an internal e-mail, with the company’s new mission statement: to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”. Nadella a year ago announced layoffs that would affect about 12,500 employees who came to Microsft from Nokia (along with 5,500 other Microsoft employees), and the company had since shuttered phone factories from China to Hungary. Instead “Microsoft intends to focus its efforts in phones on three areas: business users, value customers and ‘flagship devices.'”. But Microsoft hasn’t given up on Windows Phone. Over the past year, Microsoft has laid off 18,000 workers, cutting operations deemed insufficiently profitable.

Last month, Mr Stephen Elop, the Nokia’s ex- chief executive who became a senior Microsoft executive after the acquisition, overseeing its devices business, left the company.

A survey by research firm IDC said Microsoft’s Windows was expected to capture just 3.2% of the global smartphone market this year.

The Wall Street Journal reports Nadella sent an email to employees saying the company would not be discontinuing phone production. Yet, because consumers have shifted more of their time to mobile, it is imperative for Microsoft to remain in the market through a successful Windows 10 launch, said FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives.