From DailyTech: Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in July announced it would be embarking on a fresh round of layoffs, which would more specifically involve the "reduction of up to 7,800 positions, primarily in the phone business."
Microsoft billed it as part of a "restructuring process", for its phone hardware unit. The unit is known for its eye-catching "Lumia" line, a brand which Microsoft has continued following the acquisition of the unit from Finnish former partner Nokia Oyj. (HEL:NOK1V) in Sept. 2013 for $7.2B USD. When the deal closed in April 2014 hopes were high, but within a couple of months Microsoft had announced drastic layoffs of 18,000 employees, mostly at Nokia. It's since taken a writedown of $7.6B USD related to the purchase, a writeoff which indicates that it got pretty poor bang for its buck on the deal.
The 7,800 layoffs are a fresh wave of layoffs on top of the previous 18,000. That's a total of nearly 26,000 employees in two rounds of layoffs. Microsoft inherited 34,000 employees from Nokia. With as little as 9,000 or less of those employees destined to keep their jobs in the long term, it's fair to say the inherited Nokia teams at Microsoft have been decimated, a fact that likely has been in part a cause of cancellations of certain high end Lumia models.
Reuters reported Monday that the 7,800 layoffs would include deep cuts not only to manufacturing in Asia, but also cutting 2,300 engineers, designers, and salespeople which are spread across three offices of the Microsoft Mobile Oyj. unit in Finland. Reuters adds that with the layoffs Microsoft will keep only two of its three offices open. Offices in Espoo and Tampere, Finland with survive in downsized form, the office in Salo, Finland will disappear.
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