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Liveblog: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talks Q4 earnings, big layoffs

Satya Nadella and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop in a photo-op.
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2014-07-22T16:30:00-05:00

Last week, Microsoft announced that it would be making the largest set of staff cuts in the company's history, axing as many as 18,000 jobs over the next fiscal year. This week, CEO Satya Nadella will be delivering Microsoft's fourth-quarter earnings results, and according to his corporate-speak-filled layoff e-mail, Nadella will take the opportunity to "share further specifics on where we [Microsoft] are focusing our innovation investments."

This likely means elaboration on both the specific nature of the cuts (which Microsoft EVP and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop discussed at length in his own e-mail last week) and some details on where and how Microsoft plans to expend effort to improve itself. There will also likely be a barrage of questions from analysts wanting to know about how the cuts will affect Microsoft's business strategy, since Nadella's e-mail contained language indicating that he wanted to (among other things) flatten the organization's notoriously thick management layer cake.

Shares of MSFT actually jumped a few points when trading commenced after the layoff announcements on the morning of July 17; revenues are expected to be up from last fiscal year's fourth quarter, and analyst expectations are that Microsoft's Q414 performance will come in at about $0.60 per share, down from $0.66 last year.

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