- Microsoft on Thursday sacked 34 (85 per cent) of the 40 employees in the Nigerian office of its phone division.
- The sacking came 24 hours after the company’s latest Windows 10 was made available in Nigeria and 189 other countries.
- Employees at the Nigerian office were silent on the matter, but a source said that the downsizing was part of the global decision of Microsoft to streamline its phone division.
- The source said the sacking was in line with the massive layoff of workers “sweeping through the global offices of Microsoft’s phone division.”
- The Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft, Satya Nadella, had said in a memo to all Nigerian employees in late June that “the company needed to make some “tough choices” in areas that were not working”.
- The memo had stated that 7,800 jobs would be cut from the mobile division working on Windows Phone hardware.
- The e-mail from Nadella to all employees, which was made available to our correspondent, read, “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.
Source: PUNCH
