Microsoft to Cut 7,800 Jobs

Microsoft, the technology giant that has brought us wonderful systems and video game consoles will be laying off close to 7,800 pepole, CNN Money reports.  The majority of these layoffs will be occurring in Microsoft’s floundering smartphone industry.  Analyst Ben Thompson came out with the following quote regarding Microsoft’s feeble attempt to enter the smartphone world:

“It is a deal that makes no sense.  Adding on a mobile phone business that Microsoft probably should abandon is like attaching an anchor to said straitjacket and tossing the patient into the ocean.”

Adding insult to injury, many of Nokia’s Microsoft employees work in the country of Finland.  These newest cuts will be crippling for one city in particular:

“Finland loses 2,300 jobs… pretty much killing the city of Salo.”- Pekka Pekkala, representative of the Finland’s Prime Minister office.

In this author’s opinion, Microsoft bit off way more than they can chew.  A few years ago, I decided to leave the comfortable world of the Android smartphone and purchased a Nokia Lumia, powered by the Windows software.  While I did admire the smoothness between screens and the way applications loaded, the Lumia was nothing more than a glorified paperweight.  The machine’s application store was woefully underdeveloped, and continues to stay that way.  Third party developers do not waste their time developing applications for the Windows smartphone market, and why would they?  99.99999 percent of smartphone users are either Android or Apple (not sure how accurate that percentage is, but it HAS to be pretty close).  I tried to find applications that were common among all smartphones, and what I was left with were cheap knockoffs.  After only six months, I returned to the Android market and made sure to apologize multiple times for leaving them for someone else.

And as always with these type of stories, you hate to see anyone lose their jobs, and potentially a city losing its main economic draw.

(Thanks to CNN Money for quotes and the story.)