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Microsoft Is Laying Off 1,850 to Streamline Its Smartphone Business (theverge.com)

Microsoft is making more changes to its smartphone business. The company, which sold its feature phone business last week, on Wednesday announced that it is scaling back hardware -- laying off 1,850 staff and take a charge of $950 million including $200 million in severance payments in a memo to all employees. The company insists that "great new devices" are in the works. From Myerson's memo: Last week we announced the sale of our feature phone business. Today I want to share that we are taking the additional step of streamlining our smartphone hardware business, and we anticipate this will impact up to 1,850 jobs worldwide, up to 1,350 of which are in Finland. These changes are incredibly difficult because of the impact on good people who have contributed greatly to Microsoft. Speaking on behalf of Satya and the entire Senior Leadership Team, we are committed to help each individual impacted with our support, resources, and respect. For context, Windows 10 recently crossed 300 million monthly active devices, our Surface and Xbox customer satisfaction is at record levels, and HoloLens enthusiasts are developing incredible new experiences. Yet our phone success has been limited to companies valuing our commitment to security, manageability, and Continuum, and with consumers who value the same. Thus, we need to be more focused in our phone hardware efforts.

7 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. That explains alot by wkwilley2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet our phone success has been limited to companies valuing our commitment to security,..."

    Think I found your problem right there.

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    Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
  2. Little Wonder... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are they even growing at this point? I mean, their marketshare isn't much above statistical noise, and even buying Nokia didn't help them much thanks to their demand to re-form it into their vision instantly instead of trying to ship Nokia into shape and introduce their vision slowly into it.

    I get their drive to unify mobile+gaming+PC+whatever into one big fat ecosystem, but let's face it - they got into the mobile market way too late, and what moves they did make were either not capitalized on properly (Sidekick), flopped hard (Pink/Kin), or was way too-little/too-late (Nokia).

    Maybe it's time for them to instead go back to their roots? It may be too late to un-suck the Windows UI, but at least they can make moves to un-NSA the damned thing and to stop treating their customers like easily-abused chattel... ...nah. Maybe it's better to just let them die. Wish Linux had a wider market, though.

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    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  3. The severance package is... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...free upgrades to Windows 10 on all your Windows devices!

  4. If they streamline it enough... by VAXcat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...maybe they will stop trying to make the Windows Desktop work like a Windows phone...

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    There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
  5. Found the typo by wcrowe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It took awhile, but I finally caught the typo. It says their success was "limited to", but what they meant was "limited by". The sentence makes sense after you swap in the correct word.

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    Proverbs 21:19
  6. Re:"Windows 10 recently crossed 300 million monthl by macs4all · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yet nobody gets upset at Apple for forcing OS upgrades, or Google/Cell phone carriers for forcing OS upgrades on their phones. Everybody loves to whine but MS is just adopting the same model of OS upgrades as their competitors have had for years.

    Excuse me, COWARDLY shill; but Apple NEVER forces an Upgrade. NEVER.

    My iPad 2 is still running iOS 7. It COULD be running iOS 9.x; but I don't want to upgrade. So I don't.

    My MacBook Pro is running OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks). It COULD be running OS X 10.11.4 (El Capitan); but I don't want to upgrade. So I don't.

    Up until yesterday, my iPhone 6 plus was running iOS 8.4; I finally saw something in iOS 9 that I thought was interesting, so I upgraded to iOS 9.3.2. But nothing and nobody forced me to.

    Get your facts straight, MS Shill.

  7. Burning platform by stooo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    MS is on a burning platform.
    Now they must jump in the water.

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    aaaaaaa