Microsoft basically quits the phone business


Peter Bright for Ars Technica:

Microsoft bought Nokia's Devices and Services business in 2013 for $7.1 billion. In July last year, Microsoft laid off 7,800 of the staff from that acquisition and took an impairment charge of $7.6 billion. The remaining feature phone portion of the business was sold off last week for $350 million. With today's announcement, the smartphone hardware business is being all but wiped out. There will be one last impairment charge of approximately $950 million, of which $200 million is severance pay.

Yikes. Microsoft, however, says it plans to still occupy the mobile phone business, but in a very narrow space. CEO Nadella says it will focus on "enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same."

Microsoft is still very entrenched in enterprise, so there's likely a lot leverage there for corporate devices. iPhone and Android devices, however, are likely to still be favored simply because it's what employees want to use. So, essentially Microsoft seems to be targeting very specialized situations where employees can't be offered a choice. Or perhaps Microsoft will go back to the old playbook of convincing technology departments that Microsoft solutions are best for them regardless of what users may want.