Microsoft is currently poised to make what is being described as the “biggest round of job cuts” to Microsoft for five years, or so we’re told.
The software behemoth will more than likely unveil staff cuts that were at least in part hinted at by chief executive Satya Nadella in his recent PR communication last week. The cuts are reported to be the biggest in five years for Microsoft, with the last big set of cuts being back in 2009, when former CEO Steve Ballmer cut 5,000 of its staff, five per cent of its employ.
While many of the cuts will be from the recently acquired Nokia handset division—30,000 jobs were added as a result of the $7 billion deal—marketing jobs in other divisions such as Xbox may also take a hit, according to the sources. According to the report, Nadella will top Ballmer’s number, eliminating positions at the Nokia mobile phone business and in areas of overlap between Microsoft and Nokia.
The purchase of Nokia ballooned Microsoft’s headcount way past the 100,000 barrier that Ballmer had been judiciously keeping beneath with the cuts of 2009. Also going are people in engineering for businesses including the global Xbox team. Marketing is the standard port of call for any CEO looking to cut costs, sorry guys but you are expendable.
Nadella will also use the cuts as an opportunity for some more corporate restructuring, 12 months after the last shake up, he probably knows what he’s doing…
The job cuts are part of CEO Satya Nadella’s sweeping changes to the company, as he transitions away from former CEO Steve Ballmer’s vision of a “devices and services” company toward a “mobile-first and cloud-first” productivity firm.
Here’s an excerpt of the letter Nadella wrote to his employees: “Nothing is off the table in how we think about shifting our culture to deliver on this core strategy… organizations will change. Mergers and acquisitions will occur. Job responsibilities will evolve. New partnerships will be formed. Tired traditions will be questioned. Our priorities will be adjusted. New skills will be built. New ideas will be heard. New hires will be made. Processes will be simplified. And if you want to thrive at Microsoft and make a world impact, you and your team must add numerous more changes to this list that you will be enthusiastic about driving.” He neglected to mention that large numbers of staff will get canned.