Microsoft Announces 18,000 Jobs Cut; Stephen Elop Emails the 12,500 Lost at Nokia

[dgstorm]

One of the big news stories of today comes from Microsoft. The company just announced they will be cutting 18,000 jobs, which was quite a bit more than analysts were expecting based on earlier reports. Of this number, most of the cuts will be cut from Nokia's Devices and Services business as they eliminate a large swath of "professional and factory positions." This amounts to 12,500, which is almost 70% of the total amount.

Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella, claimed that this plan will help the company become "more agile" and allow teams to work more freely. The Xbox and Surface divisions will see only "limited change," because the company will move forward with the plans which they implemented earlier this year. Their ultimate strategy is to push harder into innovating in mobile and cloud technologies.

Microsoft's VP of devices and services division, Stephen Elop, sent out an email to the 12,500 employees affected by this mass layoff. Here's a snippet of what he had to say,

“We recognize these planned changes are broad and have very difficult implications for many of our team members. The team transferring from Nokia and the teams that have been part of Microsoft have each experienced a number of remarkable changes these last few years. We operate in a competitive industry that moves rapidly, and change is necessary. As difficult as some of our changes are today, this direction deliberately aligns our work with the cross company efforts that Satya has described in his recent emails.”

It's not exactly comforting, but it is very diplomatic and dances around the subject. It seems like Elop might find success if he decided to go into politics.

Source: Microsoft (1) & (2)