Microsoft has confirmed that it was laying off staffers from its Azure unit but did not provide an accurate number of employees affected.
“Organizational and workforce adjustments are a necessary and regular part of managing our business. We will continue to prioritize and invest in strategic growth areas for our future and in support of our customers and partners,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
The layoffs, which were first reported by Business Insider, have impacted the Azure for Operators (AFO) and Mission Engineering teams.
While the Insider report cites a source claiming that at least 1,500 staffers were impacted, another person in the know of things suggested that the number might be highly inflated, at least for the AFO team.
The AFO team is involved in research and development in the domains of networking, security, and systems. They not only develop functional systems but also collaborate with academia, produce scientific literature, release software for the research community, and implement state-of-the-art technologies in Azure for their clients, as stated on the Microsoft portal.
Meanwhile, the Mission Engineering team under Microsoft’s Strategic Missions and Technologies (SMT) division, pays special attention to the field of space.
In 2021, Microsoft reorganized its US Federal business, Azure Space & Mission Engineering, Azure for Operators, and Azure Quantum under the leadership of Jason Zander. This move, where Zander reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella, aims to hasten growth in several of Microsoft’s critical projects.
A recent wave of Microsoft job cuts follows the earlier termination of 1,900 positions within its Activision Blizzard and Xbox sectors.
However, Microsoft has been growing its cloud revenue buoyed by the demand for generative AI.
In April, Microsoft posted revenue of $61.9 billion for the quarter ended March, up 17% year on year, of which $26.7 billion (up 21%) came from its Intelligent Cloud segment, consisting of Azure and other public, private, and hybrid server products and cloud services.
The cloud figure excludes Bing Search and Xbox Cloud Gaming, which are part of its More Personal Computing segment, where revenue rose 17% to $15.6 billion, and Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, part of its Productivity and Business Processes segment, where revenue rose 12% to $19.6 billion.
While discussing the quarterly results, CFO Amy Hood said that customers wanted more cloud compute for their AI workloads than the company could supply.
Last month, the company at its annual Build conference released a volley of updates across its Azure offerings to attract developers and CIOs.
