Microsoft reportedly lays off team focused on winning back consumers

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge

According to a report, Microsoft is laying off employees. The software giant formed a Modern Life Experiences team in order to win back the non- enterprise customers it let down. According to Business Insider, Microsoft is laying off about 200 employees and telling them to either find another job or take a pay cut.

While Microsoft isn't officially commenting on the end of its Modern Life initiative, a Microsoft senior designer revealed there was "hard news" for the Modern Life Experiences team Microsoft cut less than 1% of its 180,000-person workforce, with job cuts in consulting and customer and partner solutions. As the economy weakens, Microsoft has been cutting jobs.

Image: Yusuf Mehdi (Twitter)

Microsoft is focusing on Windows, Microsoft365, Microsoft Teams for consumer, Surface, and of course the XBOX. The Modern Life Experiences team was formed by Microsoft after a rough time for its consumer services. Windows Phone was declared dead by Microsoft in the same year it was killed off its music service. The Microsoft Band fitness device disappeared in 2016 and Microsoft switched its focus to chase business users instead of trying to compete with rivals. There are new signs that the hardware may be in trouble.

Microsoft has had success with its subscription service for consumers. The recent quarter saw a 15 percent increase in the number of subscriptions. Office consumer was up 9 percent over the course of the year.

Manik Gupta was hired by Microsoft as the head of product at the time. Gupta is focused on building consumer experiences across Microsoft.

Over the past couple of years, Microsoft has been trying to acquire popular communities to improve its efforts with non- business users. Microsoft does not have a community or social service that is widely used by consumers. Microsoft is still trying to align its consumer offerings with those of its rivals, despite the fact that they all have big consumer apps.