Microsoft axes up to 3,000 sales jobs

Microsoft announced a major reorganization to refocus its business more on the cloud. The software giant's Azure cloud usiness has seen massive growth in recent years, sales were up 93 percent last quarter. This is sparking Microsoft to change the way how it organizes its sales channel.

As part of the restructuring, Microsoft will let go off less than 10 percent of the company's global sales force, which implies up to 3,000 jobs will be cut. Microsoft said around 75 percent of the job cuts will be outside the US.

The Redmond-based company says the restructure is not about cutting costs but about making the switch from the traditional software market to software-as-a-service.

"Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners," a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC. "Today, we are taking steps to notify some employees that their jobs are under consideration or that their positions will be eliminated. 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."

Microsoft said its goal isn't to cut costs and the move is instead a change in how Microsoft handles sales. It said its plan is to use employees who are more knowledgeable about specific verticals so they can sell bigger packages.

Microsoft has a global workforce of around 121,000 employees.

Via: CNBC