Microsoft to slash 7800 jobs

The company is in the midst of a broader restructuring announced past year that includes cutting 18,000 jobs.

Pretty awful news out of Redmond today – 7,800 people will lose their jobs as Microsoft leadership more or less acknowledges that their Windows Phone strategy is failing.

The company will be able to allocate resources to the areas where it is efficient, such as cloud and software development, through narrowing its focus in mobile, according to Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, a research firm.

While Microsoft will not halt the production of smartphones, Nadella said Wednesday that the tech giant would no longer focus on the growth of that business, and instead emphasize the expansion of a broad “ecosystem” of products.

In an email to employees, CEO Satya Nadella provided his reasoning for the changes. “Our reinvention will be centred on creating mobility of experiences across the entire device family including phones”.

The layoffs are expected to take place over the “next several months”. The company is also writing off $7.6 billion related to its acquisition of Nokia’s phone business despite only spending .2 billion to acquire it a year ago.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone system has struggled to take on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android system.

SAN FRANCISCO Microsoft Inc’s (MSFT.O) future in mobile devices likely hinges on the software maker’s ability to convince developers to create apps for the phone version of Windows 10 after its ill-fated Nokia acquisition helped trigger 7,800 layoffs.

The partnership between Microsoft and the two ad services was announced Monday on the company’s official blog.

This should come as no surprise to those who have been following Microsoft’s changes over the past year.

Nadella said that Microsoft transferred some of its imagery acquisition operations to Uber and it will continue to source base mapping data and imagery from partners.

Microsoft executives have been hinting at more cutbacks for months.

This news marks one of many restructures to occur under CEO Satya Nadella.

Wednesday’s announcement has caused much speculation about what else Nadella may decide to throw overboard, from Microsoft’s customer relationship management division Dynamics (6 percent market share) to retail stores, Surface tablets, Bing search engine and the still-popular Xbox gaming console.