The San Diego layoff will see the departure of 28 senior software development engineers, 18 senior program managers and seven senior hardware engineers, based on a state filing submitted by Microsoft.
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After fresh round of job cuts, Nadella said that there is need to focus on phone efforts in the near term while driving reinvention. Nadella explained in an email to employees that Microsoft is planning to move phones into the devices business, and by doing that, would create a more effective phone portfolio.
The latest job cuts are in addition to the 18,000 jobs that Redmond said it planned to cut a year ago.
AOL previously used Google to power its search engine. In a memo given to Microsoft employees, the CEO remarks that he is “committed to our first-party devices including phones“, but considers the wider implications of the announcement.
Along with writing down the value of that business, Microsoft Corp. said it will incur $750 million to $850 million in restructuring costs related to the cuts. Microsoft claims that this is no longer its priority.
Microsoft has struggled to break into the mobile market, which is dominated by Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Google Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Android.
It would cut almost 7,800 jobs, which is about 7 percent of its workforce, maximum of which will be done in the phone hardware business.
Microsoft had about 118,000 employees worldwide at the end of March, according to its website, with about half in the US.
Going forward, we will focus on building the very best Windows phones on a quicker timeline.
Microsoft is rumored to be developing a pair of flagship Windows handsets that will be released around the same time as Windows 10 Mobile, and Nadella’s statements today seem to imply that those plans remain on track.
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Last month, ex- Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop left Microsoft two years after overseeing the Finnish phone manufacturer’s sale to Microsoft. The entire lay-off operations are expected to be completed by the end of the company’s fiscal year and with it, Microsoft hopes to shake off the doldrums and become a majority player in the smartphone market competing against the likes of Apple and Samsung. However, due to regulatory hurdles, the Nokia India plant, which employed 6,600, was excluded from the deal.
