Microsoft cuts staff to make room for cloud

Microsoft Australia has started selecting staff to be made redundant as part of a global round of cuts aimed at shifting the company from a boxed product vendor to a cloud computing company.

The company's local office has confirmed that staff from Microsoft Australia will be impacted by global job cuts.

Sources within Microsoft told CRN that job cuts began yesterday, but was as yet unsure of the volume of staff to be put off.

A spokesman for Microsoft said the job cuts "affect" Microsoft Australia but declined to disclose the number of positions impacted. Microsoft said the number of staff cuts is "relatively low".

Microsoft said the change was instituted by Microsoft worldwide and reflected Microsoft's push to cloud services.

"Microsoft believes its future business is firmly centred on the cloud, and we are re-balancing the organisation globally in order to create a number of new cloud specific roles across the business," a Microsoft spokesperson told CRN.

"We have identified roles that we will not be continuing with as part of our organisational structure as we create capacity for roles more aligned to this core cloud focus."

The spokesman said Microsoft is reallocating its focus and that staff with 'talent' in cloud computing "may be moved laterally" into new positions.

Microsoft has spruiked its cloud computing ambitions in recent months. In April, the company declared plans to "invest heavily" in cloud computing technology.

In March, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer may have hinted at possible skills changes when he said the "cloud is changing the way" the the company thinks about "server hardware and software."