Microsoft Corp on Thursday said it is to cut an unspecified number of jobs amid reports the US tech giant was reorganizing its global sales operations.
“Today, we are taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated,” Microsoft said in an e-mailed response for comment.
Earlier, CNBC television said the company would be cutting about 3,000 positions, mostly from its non-US sales staff.
“Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, redeployment in others,” the company said in a statement.
The layoffs come as the company refocuses its sales force on making Microsoft a pivotal part of businesses relying on cloud computing, media reports said.
Microsoft had more than 121,000 employees worldwide at the end of March, according to its Web site.
Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella has sought to reduce the firm’s focus on software, shifting to cloud computing and business services.
Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry saw such layoffs as symptomatic of the technology industry’s “major overhaul” caused by a shift to computing and online services being hosted in the Internet cloud.
“This is not the end,” Chowdhry said. “At companies transitioning from the old world to the new world you will see layoffs accelerate; it’s a slow and gradual and painful experience for them.”
Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon.com Inc’s Web services are the dominant “super-clouds” for computing, Chowdhry said.
With super-cloud computing platforms, resources can be focused on refining and supporting a single version of operating software instead of versions released about every year to be installed on machines in homes or businesses, he said.
“You look at Microsoft and you realize that certain things that worked in the past are not gong to be relevant in the future,” Chowdhry said.
Microsoft has been shifting to a cloud-based model under Nadella, as the industry moves away from packaged software that was once the core of its business.
Microsoft said revenue from its “Intelligent Cloud” rose 11 percent from a year earlier to US$6.8 billion.
The Redmond, Washington-based company has announced thousands of job cuts in recent years, the most severe being 18,000 positions eliminated in 2014 related to its acquisition of Nokia and failed efforts in the smartphone market.
The technology giant cut another 7,800 jobs in 2015 and 4,700 last year.
In related news, Microsoft Taiwan general manager Steven Shaw (邵光華) reportedly tendered his resignation this week after completing his three-year term at the company, Central News Agency reported yesterday, citing industry sources.
Shaw’s position is to be filled by Davis Tsai (蔡恩全), Microsoft’s vice president for Greater China and general manager for China, during this transition period, the report said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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