AppleInsider Staff
Microsoft on Wednesday announced a restructuring of its mobile hardware group that will see as many as 1,850 employees — most of them former Nokia staffers — lose their jobs as the company looks to right the listing smartphone ship.
"We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation — with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a release. "We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms."
The company says that up to 1,350 positions at its Finnish hardware office will be affected, with another 500 positions on the chopping block around the world.
As a result of the move, Microsoft will book a $950 million restructuring charge. Of that figure, $200 million is reserved for severance packages.
These layoffs continue Microsoft's efforts to wind down its Nokia experiment, for which the firm has taken billions of dollars in losses.
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced the sale of what used to be Nokia's feature phone group to Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn. That $350 million deal includes an "exclusive global license" to build Nokia-branded phones and tablets for the next 10 years.
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37 Comments
How to axe a company, part three, the final act.
Microsoft does this and nothing happens to the stock price. It may even go up. Even though Apple has much more cash and revenue than MS if Apple were to announce a billion dollar write off on something it would be presented as the Apocalypse of Doom.
So Microsoft will now concentrate on “enterprise” phones instead of consumer phones? Wait... what?
The Elopcalypse is complete.
I can't help but think of Steve Ballmer's reaction to the iPhone in 2007. Maybe if he had taken it more seriously they'd still be in the game today. Its unfortunate how much he killed Microsoft because of his arrogance. Not only did he do this for the iPhone, but many other Apple products.