Microsoft CONFIRMS major layoffs (UPDATED)

Shift of tone, or slashed to the bone?

Satya Nadella's Microsoft may feel more focused, but the scale of the cuts may undermine confidence

As predicted on Computing earlier today, Microsoft has announced a new wave of job cuts: 7,800 will go, mainly in its hardware and smartphone businesses. The company is also writing off $7.6 billion from its Nokia acquisition.

The cuts will be in addition to the 18,000 job losses that the company announced last year, and are designed to slash costs to the bone and create a leaner, more focused organisation – more in line with its CEO's personal style, in fact.

"We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem, including our first-party device family," Nadella said in an email to employees today. He had earlier promised "tough choices" in areas of the business that aren't working.

Despite his occasional gaffes, Satya Nadella has shifted the organisational tone away from the bullish, heavy, aggressive Ballmer years that, in retrospect, should be seen as catastrophic for the company.

Ballmer might have stomped the world stage like the archetypal 800lb gorilla, but during his tenure, Microsoft ceded control of the mobile market to Apple, Google, and a wave of low-cost Chinese electronics companies. It now finds itself overly reliant on its cloud services for business, and its still-popular Office apps.

Microsoft is steadily raising the prices of enterprise products in some parts of the world.

Nadella's Microsoft feels more open, more focused on the user, with Windows 10 representing its last big bet on the future, before the OS becomes just another a series of rolling updates.

But the truth is that without its legacy of having owned over 95 per cent of the desktop market, Microsoft might struggle to compete today if CIOs had the opportunity to rip out their infrastructures and start again.

In a sense, Microsoft has become an overweight backroom boy, whose purpose is unclear to the rising numbers of millennial, digital-native workers in the front office. It was a late migrant to the cloud, and is now trying to invent the future for 'natives' who can cope very well without it.

But while Nadella's shift of focus and tone may be welcome – and long overdue – a total of nearly 26,000 job cuts in under a year may leave a demotivated, inward-focused organisation in their wake.