Microsoft to lay off thousands of employees as part of restructuring move

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Barely a week after Satya Nadella's widely publicized memo about a new Microsoft, some disturbing yet expected news from Redmond as reports of thousands of layoffs in the coming year. Affected are both Microsoft employees as well as Nokia employees around the world.

Microsoft announced this morning that 18,000 jobs will be eliminated. Nokia, which was recently acquired by Microsoft, will suffer the brunt of the culling with up to 12,500 professionals and factory workers being let go.

This is a staggering number of layoffs, one of the largest from a technology company of this size. What's more, it looks like as per Stephen Elop's revelation today, the company will abandon the Nokia X platform of affordable, Android powered devices. Stay tuned as more news surfaces