Microsoft fires 2,850 more people over Nokia mistake

The smartphone hardware division will have its fourth round of layoffs since Microsoft acquired Nokia.

The Nokia acquisition is still considered a big mistake for Microsoft.

According to Microsoft’s latest report, the company plans to lay off about 2,850 people next year to reduce its research and production of smartphone hardware. Two months earlier, the US software company also cut about 1,850 employees, compared to 7,800 last year.

After acquiring Nokia, Microsoft showed that it had many difficulties in developing and organizing human resources. By the time the new deal was completed in 2014, up to 18,000 people working for the old Nokia had been laid off. So far, spending 7.2 billion USD to buy the Finnish phone company has not brought any signs of improvement for Microsoft.

Steve Ballmer, CEO at the time, was widely criticized for the effectiveness and feasibility of the deal. The company was said to be not aggressive enough to continue developing Windows Phone, competing with Android or iOS when it already had Nokia's hardware development division. Many people considered the acquisition of Nokia a wrong investment at the wrong time.

Since taking over Microsoft in 2014, CEOSatya Nadella has prioritized cloud computing and other mobile platforms, and the company has already seen some early success with $6.7 billion in cloud revenue, up 7% from last year.

According to VNE