Microsoft is to cut “thousands” of jobs worldwide as it attempts to strengthen its presence in the cloud computing division but is facing intense competition from rivals such as Amazon and Google.
Microsoft employs about 121,000 people globally, including about 3,000 in the UK and the Tech giant reveals that cuts are expected to hit the sales team hardest as Microsoft puts more emphasis on selling cloud services although the majority of cuts are expected to be outside the US.
Cloud computing involves companies storing files and programs in big data centers so they can be accessed anywhere, not just on individual computers, Microsoft targets its sales operations better in an effort to attract businesses looking to shift storage and other parts of their businesses online to the cloud.
Microsoft revealed in a statement that it had notified some employees that their positions will be “eliminated”.
“Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners,”
“Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others,” it said.
The firm also revealed that its “intelligent cloud” products generated $1.7bn (£1.3bn) in revenue for the nine months to the end of March, driven by doubling revenue from its cloud computing platform “Azure” but, Microsoft is still lagging a long way behind Amazon Web Services in the sector.