Microsoft to place emphasis on cloud-computing products; likely to cut down sales team

With Microsoft putting emphasis on its Cloud-computing products instead of licences for boxed software, the technology giant is likely to reorganise its sales groups, resulting in layoffs, media reported. A formal announcement could be made by next week, The Seattle Times reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.Plans for a Cloud-focused reorganisation were reported earlier by the Puget Sound Business Journal, which said the shift will bring some of the most significant changes to the sales force in years.Judson Althoff, Executive Vice-President, Worldwide Commercial Business, Microsoft, has been critical of company's former sales approach, which he characterised as an attempt to sell Azure, Microsoft's platform for on-demand computing power and software services. The sales group of Microsoft was affected in an earlier layoff announcement.The layoffs announced in July 2016, which targeted 2,850 cuts over the course of Microsoft's just-ended fiscal year, included at least 900 employees of the sales group.  Microsoft had also added to the payroll about 1,000 salespersons with specialties in selling Cloud-computing products, Althoff had earlier said.Microsoft recently acquired an Israel-based cloud management company Cloudyn.The company announced “Microsoft has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cloudyn, an innovative company that helps enterprises and managed service providers optimise their investments in cloud services,”.With inputs from IANS