Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has confirmed it is cutting jobs as part of a sales reorganisation to shift its focus to cloud software amid fierce competition from Amazon and Google.
The software giant did not specify the number of roles at risk but said it was notifying employees that their jobs were under consideration or that their position will be eliminated.
The majority of job cuts are expected to affect sales staff from outside the US.
"Microsoft is implementing changes to better serve our customers and partners," it said in a statement.
“Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis. This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time-to-time, re-deployment in others.”
Earlier media reports had suggested the company planned to get rid of some 3,000 jobs across the globe.
Microsoft has about 121,000 employees across the globe, including about 3,000 in the UK.
The layoffs come as part of Microsoft’s restructuring to refocus on selling cloud services hosted on its datacentres.
The cloud computing division has delivered strong results for Microsoft but the company has been lagging behind market leader Amazon.
Cloud products generated about US$1.7bn in revenue for the nine months to the end of March, driven by its cloud computing platform Azure.