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Microsoft's Windows Phone folly costs it another billion dollars

1,850 jobs cut - mostly in Finland. Microsoft Mobile. Oy

The cost of Microsoft’s white elephant entry into smartphone manufacturing has gone up by another $1bn.

Microsoft is restructuring its smartphone hardware business in a move that will cost 1,850 jobs and $950m.

Severance pay will claim $200m of that figure, with 1,350 staff losing their jobs at Microsoft Mobile Oy in Finland and a further 500 posts going across the rest of the world.

Microsoft plans to record the charge in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2016 with the restructuring to be finished by July 2017, it said.

The additional cost makes what has been the largest write-off in Microsoft’s 41-year history even bigger.

In July 2015, Microsoft announced a $7.6bn adjustment on its Phone hardware business just 15 months after buying Nokia’s mobile phone business for $7.2bn.

Earlier this month Microsoft said it is selling the feature phone business it bought with Nokia to a subsidiary of Foxconn – FIH Mobile – and equity-backed HMD Global.

The $350m deal will see 4,500 staff transfer to the manufacturer. ®

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