Microsoft Slashes 2,850 Jobs In Mobile Division And Global Sales Organization
Microsoft will cut 2,850 jobs, mainly in its smartphone hardware business and global sales organization, as the next phase of a previously disclosed plan to restructure parts of the company.
The layoffs are an extension of the plan that prompted Microsoft to initiate 1,850 job cuts in May.
Robby Hill, CEO of HillSouth, a Microsoft partner based in Florence, S.C., said that while ’layoffs are tough whenever they happen,’ Microsoft ’appears to continue to face the reality that their struggling phone business just was not worth continued investments in, and that their resources are better suited towards other product categories.’
Notably, the layoffs—some of which are in sales—follow the announcement this month that Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner is departing. Turner had overseen the company’s sales and marketing division, and his duties have been divided up among a handful of executives.
Those include Judson Althoff, formerly Oracle’s channel chief, who will lead Worldwide Commercial Business at Microsoft.
Hill said the sales layoffs are also not surprising "seeing as how so much of the Microsoft portfolio has become more channel-friendly and engagement is probably very high in the burgeoning cloud services space."
"Microsoft has a large channel of resellers, and coming off this year’s very well-received Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft knows that its partners are prepared to continue to provide excellent representation and support of the Microsoft product portfolio," he added.
Microsoft reported the 2,850 additional job cuts Thursday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, disclosing that the jobs ’will be reduced during the year as an extension of the earlier plan.’
’We periodically evaluate how to best deploy the company’s resources,’ Microsoft said in the filing in explaining the job cuts.
The moves are the latest part of Microsoft's efforts to undo a portion of its 2014 acquisition of Nokia’s phone business.
Windows Phone OS had a less than 1 percent share of the smartphone market in the first quarter of 2016, according to Gartner.