Microsoft announced its plan today to “eliminate up to 18,000 jobs” over the next year, with some deep cuts from the businesses it acquired from Nokia. According to the report, about 12,500 of the jobs being eliminated will come from the Nokia groups, or from its overlap at Microsoft. Echoed by recent news that the company has killed off its plans for Nokia Android phones, this huge shake-up seems to indicate Microsoft’s plan to focus on improving its cloud and mobile services instead of wasting their efforts on hardware manufacture. Considering its competitors Apple and IBM are now teaming up to tackle the enterprise IT market that Microsoft currently dominates, such a repositioning could be proven timely in the long run.
Update: Microsoft is also reported to be closing the Xbox Entertainment Studios.