Microsoft is expected to layoff "thousands" of employees this week as part of an effort to reorganize its sales division worldwide, according to a source with knowledge of the plan.
staff and to reorganize its sales division worldwide, according to a source with knowledge of the plan recently, which is set to mainly involve enterprise customer unit and SME-focused divisions.
It is said that the redundancy is to be announced this week. Microsoft has declined to any comment.
The layoffs were reported earlier last week by various media outlets including Bloomberg.
Bloomberg said it may be "some of the most significant cuts in the sales force of Microsoft in years" and "also impact local marketing efforts in various countries".
In January this year, Microsoft introduced a lot of organizational changes, which is considered to have impacted its sales and marketing teams. As part of those moves, Judson Althoff, who publicly criticized Microsoft's former sales approach, took command of the sales and marketing division. In his opinions, Microsoft should focus on selling Azure and other cloud services.
Microsoft already cut 2,850 jobs globally last year, which included at least 900 staffers from the sales division. The anticipated downsizing is considered as a further step towards Microsoft's "cloud-first and mobile-first" goal.
