Today, Microsoft has announced it will cut 18,000 jobs over the course of the next year. Stephen Elop, Microsoft’s Vice President, will now focus efforts on its phones, Surface, and Xbox businesses. Microsoft will spend 1.6 billion dollars on severance and charges to enact these layoffs.
When asked about the potential impact of the layoffs with respect to hardware, Elop said: “With a set of changes already implemented earlier this year in these teams, this means there will be limited change for the Surface, Xbox hardware, PPI/meetings or next generation teams.”
Let’s hope that he is correct and these layoffs will not disrupt Microsoft’s business. Good luck to all those that lost their jobs.