14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's Nokia takeover was announced with much fanfare last year and completed in early 2014, but it's not all just milk and honey following this successful acquisition.
Microsoft currently has no less than 127,104 employees, as more than 25,000 people joined the company after Nokia's devices and services unit merge into its mobile divisions.
Because of this, Redmond is now said to be preparing huge layoffs, with various reports across the web suggesting that a public announcement should be made this week.
Bloomberg for example reports that the job cuts “will probably be in areas such as Nokia and divisions of Microsoft that overlap with that business, as well as marketing and engineering.” Software testers are also said to face layoffs, sources close to the plans said.
The same report states that Microsoft's new layoff could become the biggest in history, topping the 5,800 job cut announced in 2009.
Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella himself hinted in a letter sent to employees last week that job cuts could come following the Nokia acquisition, but he hasn't provided too many details on what exactly is going to happen.
“Every team across Microsoft must find ways to simplify and move faster, more efficiently. We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes. Culture change means we will do things differently,” Nadella said.
“Often people think that means everyone other than them. In reality, it means all of us taking a new approach and working together to make Microsoft better. To this end, I've asked each member of the Senior Leadership Team to evaluate opportunities to advance their innovation processes and simplify their operations and how they work.”
Nadella has refused to provide details on the supposed job cuts, saying that more information would be provided on July 22 when the company is hosting both its annual sales meeting and a conference to announce its latest earnings results.
Although the job cuts are mostly supposed to reduce workforce in areas where Nokia and Microsoft employees are both very active, it appears that Xbox marketing could also be affected by this decision.
Microsoft officially purchased Nokia's devices and services business for $7.2 billion (6.6 billion euro) in April, and as part of the deal, former Nokia president and CEO Stephen Elop has joined the software giant as head of the devices group responsible for every single device built by Microsoft.