So are they giving up on Windows Mobile then? Nokia is Windows mobile.

There doing the complete oppisite. There removing the bad and adding the good in some corps terms. Nokia wasnt succedding before so why keep the staff. Restructuring requires drastatic measures and to re establishment Nokia as a house hold name you need to move on. MS makes billions a year so they can afford to do this. Goes to show how well Xbox is doing, there not restructuring or removing staff which is good signs to the gaming buisness. As for Nokia its best.

I hope your right.  I don't buy it.

Yeah - the same franchises over and over again because they do not want to spend money to take risks. Also, what the last big game MS released? 

Microsoft has been jealous of companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook for years that are seen as "cool". The desperately want to have a product that is a hit and makes them cool again. That is why they spent money on those 3, they thought it would help their image, and being seen as "cutting edge" again by consumers would benefit all of their products lines.

Minecraft was a great investment. It just had one of the biggest conferences in history. http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/07/06/minecon-2015-sets-world-record-for-being-biggest-convention-for-a-single-game

Forza 5, Sunset overdrive, Halo Mcc, World of Tanks (July 28th), Titanfall, deadrising 3.. Coming games, Rise of the Tomb Raider,  Gears, Halo 5 Gardians, Forza 6, Rare 30, Fable Legends. 100 Backwards compatible games(will be making a new games list for both consoles since Indie's are all the buzz, Once Xbox one has BC, Those threads will not be so popular) That's all this year. Quantum Break,  gears 4, Scalebound, Crackdown, Phantum dust, unannounced rare game.

Plenty of games, What games does PS4 have they are taking major risks on. however buying a massive phone bizz is taking a major risk by the way.

The first thing people have to understand when a large corporation like MS purchase a large company like Nokia, there are tons of jobs that overlap between the 2 companies. Depending on the size of the company and what the purchaser wanted from that purchase a lot of jobs become redundant. The layoffs are more in line with removing redundant jobs then the health of the business. The jobs that usually get cut are the ones from the purchased company then the parent. I have gone through a few of these purchase where I was part of the company being purchased where most of the jobs are cut. I have also been on the other side where we go into meetings deciding which jobs are redundant and should be cut.

Its unfortunate that it has to be that way but it would be stupid for the parent company to keep jobs that overlap or no longer needed in the new structure.

That is one biggest waste ever, Microsoft.

I hope they found their job quick.

The problem is having a "cool" image was never in Microsoft's DNA no matter how much they've tried in recent years. At their core, they are a computer software company who appealed mostly to the business world. Even in the 90's, consumers never really liked Microsoft as a brand. They owned PC's that ran on Windows because they felt like they had to. Microsoft was always at being needed, not being wanted. 

That being said, after hearing this news, all I can say is Steve Ballmer is the gift that keeps on giving, lol. He may not be at Microsoft anymore but his fuckups can still be felt within the company.