Microsoft to slash up to 7800 jobs

The restructuring is expected to cost another Dollars 750-850 million. Moreover, CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft’s smartphone portfolio would be streamlined, from now on including only three types of devices: value phones, business phones, and flagships. It said it would provide more details during its fourth-quarter earnings announcement July 21.

Last year, Microsoft embarked on one of the biggest layoffs in tech history as it began cutting 18,000 jobs – around 14% of its staff. Microsoft then eliminated another 2,100 more employees in the second phase in September 2014.

The layoffs will primarily come in the phone unit, but won’t be limited to that business and will be carried out over the next several months, Chief Executive Satya Nadella said in an email to employees Wednesday morning. In addition, Stephen Elop, who was overseeing the mobile phone business after it was acquired by Microsoft, also left the company.

The company counts 1.5 billion as Windows customers spanning 190 countries, but its devices business, particularly, smartphones, failed to gain market share both in India and globally.

Microsoft has announced plans to cut up to 7,800 jobs as part of a restructure of its phone and hardware business.

It’s important to note that, in this regard, “Mobile First” implies the environment/medium that the company is building software/tech for; not that it’s focused on phones.

Longer-term – whatever that actually translates to on the calendar – Nadella sees more devices in Microsoft’s future, too, though that will presumably rest on the success or otherwise of Windows 10.

“I am committed to our first-party devices including phones”, Nadella writes. When the company announced that it intended to sell part of its mapping service to Uber and its mobile display business to AOL, it turned out to only be the first step. The company also needs to convince hardware partners like Samsung Electronics, HTC, ZTE and others that Windows is a platform worth investing in.

The new job cuts and restructuring will also mean a $7.6 billion writedown for the company, a one-time charge that many have been expecting, according to CNN.