14 DAY TRIAL // Today, Redmond-based software giant Microsoft has announced the biggest job reduction in its history, with around 18,000 people to receive the pink slip over the next year, and also provided some info on its plans for the smartphone lineup inherited from Nokia.
Thus, the company announced that it would shift some Nokia X handsets, currently running under the Android operating system, into Windows-based products in the Lumia lineup.
“In addition, we plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows. This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, said in a letter to the company’s employees.
One clear idea in this announcement is that Microsoft has no plans on manufacturing devices running under the Android operating system.
While already released Nokia X phones might remain on shelves for a while longer, chance are that we won’t see a new handset in the series released anytime soon.
Instead, Microsoft is expected to continue its focus on growing the Windows Phone platform, which has already managed to prove popular among users at all market tiers, especially in the entry-level.
In the aforementioned letter, the company’s CEO also mentioned that, out of 18,000 people to be fired, 12,500 would be from the former Nokia Devices and Services division, and that the move will affect both professional and factory positions in this division.
“Second, we are working to integrate the Nokia Devices and Services teams into Microsoft. We will realize the synergies to which we committed when we announced the acquisition last September,” Nadella said.
What this could mean is that Microsoft is not planning on becoming a full-time phone maker, though it will certainly continue to release new Lumia handsets, especially since these devices have managed to significantly increase Windows Phone’s presence on the market over the past few years.
On the one hand, this does not come as a surprise at all, considering that the company has signed new partnership agreements with a wide range of mobile phone makers out there over the past several months, some of which have already started to release Windows Phone 8.1 devices.
With Lumia phones currently accounting for over 90 percent of the Windows Phone sales all around the world, other vendors might find little room to grow, unless Microsoft allows them to do so.
The large number of layoffs that will affect the former Nokia Devices and Services division suggests that the company has just started making the first steps in this direction.