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posted by martyb on Thursday July 17 2014, @06:04PM   Printer-friendly

The meaning of Microsoft CEO's memo has been translated into action: Microsoft will cut 18,000 jobs, mostly from the Nokia division (12,500 jobs).

Later today your Senior Leadership Team member will share more on what to expect in your organization. Our workforce reductions are mainly driven by two outcomes: work simplification as well as Nokia Devices and Services integration synergies and strategic alignment.

First, we will simplify the way we work to drive greater accountability, become more agile and move faster. As part of modernizing our engineering processes the expectations we have from each of our disciplines will change. In addition, we plan to have fewer layers of management, both top down and sideways, to accelerate the flow of information and decision making. This includes flattening organizations and increasing the span of control of people managers. In addition, our business processes and support models will be more lean and efficient with greater trust between teams. The overall result of these changes will be more productive, impactful teams across Microsoft. These changes will affect both the Microsoft workforce and our vendor staff. Each organization is starting at different points and moving at different paces.

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. The first-party phone portfolio will align to Microsoft's strategic direction. To win in the higher price tiers, we will focus on breakthrough innovation that expresses and enlivens Microsoft's digital work and digital life experiences. 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.

Additional reporting at: Forbes, CNET, and El Reg.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by FuzzyTheBear on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:59PM

    by FuzzyTheBear (974) on Thursday July 17 2014, @07:59PM (#70445)

    The indecent part is laying off 18000 people and seeing the shares rise in value.
    It rewards execs for laying off and cutting jobs. That makes no sense at all .

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  • (Score: 2) by Darth Turbogeek on Friday July 18 2014, @12:05AM

    by Darth Turbogeek (1073) on Friday July 18 2014, @12:05AM (#70542)

    Unfortunatly it makes perfect sense from a shareholder perspective. Reduce costs = more profit = your company becomes more valuable = share price rise.

    Yes, this is short term thinking but it also maximises share holder value. And that's the real job of a CEO - and as long as the value increases, the shareholders are happy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @04:58AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @04:58AM (#70619)

      Following that logic every single employee should be fired and the CEO himself should quit to maximize profits...

      • (Score: 1) by mckwant on Friday July 18 2014, @01:53PM

        by mckwant (4541) on Friday July 18 2014, @01:53PM (#70782)

        I'm confident there are companies like this. Patent trolls, for instance, probably need little more than a PO Box.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 18 2014, @01:58PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Friday July 18 2014, @01:58PM (#70784) Journal

        I like the way you think... and if you had any employees, i'd subscribe to your newsletter.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---