Is Microsoft getting ready to cut jobs?

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Software giant Microsoft is believed to be trimming hundreds of staff from its global workforce as it realigns its resources to reflect a growing focus on cloud computing.

According to Seattle-based technology site TechFlash, the cuts are the result of an annual review of corporate priorities at the end of Microsoft's financial year on 30 June, which sees resources redeployed and departments reorganised to meet the company's shifting strategic policies.

While the total job losses are said to number in the hundreds, they dwarf the equivalent restructuring last year, which saw a total of 5,800 jobs cut worldwide – the first company-wide reduction in headcount in Microsoft's history.

The company currently employs just under 89,000 people worldwide, with nearly half working in the Puget Sound area of Washington state in which Microsoft's Redmond headquarters are based. Factoring in recruitment and other restructuring, the company now employs four per cent fewer people than one year ago.

The downsizing comes a week after Microsoft announced the end of its short-lived Kin mobile hardware project, which saw the company's debut mobile handsets pulled from the market barely a month after launch due to a lack of demand. However, there is no indication that the cuts are related to the failure of the Kin platform.

With no official comment from Microsoft, TechFlash suggests the moves are part of a strategic repositioning of Microsoft's core focus to cloud computing – as promised in a now-famous company-wide email from chief executive Steve Ballmer earlier this year.

The site quotes an unnamed Microsoft spokesperson as saying: “we have identified roles that we will not be continuing with as part of our organisational structure as we create capacity for roles more aligned to this core cloud focus.”

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