Microsoft Axes Last Vestiges of Nokia Purchase

After swallowing Nokia’s smartphone business in 2014, it seems like Redmond doesn’t actually want it. After shelling out a cool $7 billion for the Finnish firm, Microsoft turned tail last year and admitted it was a mistake. An expensive mistake it turned out as they took a $7.6 billion write-down and laid off over 7000 staff. Now, the epic saga has finally ended, with the few remaining Nokia staff getting the boot.

According to Microsoft, up to 1,850 employees will soon be out of a job, with most of the cuts in Finland. This isn’t a surprise given the cuts last year but it’s surprising that they held onto them for so long. In relation to the cuts, Microsoft will also take a $950 million hit, with about 20% of that going to severance. At this point, Redmond is back to square one in terms of mobile hardware, having gone for an expensive cruise.

By exiting out of the hardware space, Microsoft has seemingly given up on their mobile platform. This just leaves OEM partners to continue to push Windows phones and perhaps a few from Microsoft. It’s a shame considering that they came so close to UWP apps everywhere only to fall short. Officially, Redmond is still working on Windows phones but it remains to be seen how it will play out. Maybe we’ll finally get the rumoured Surface phone at last.