Microsoft Corp plans to lay off about 60 people and reorganize its ailing interactive-television unit, which is shifting gears to focus on new types of services, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported. The Redmond, Wash. , software company, which rarely lays off employees, also said separately that more than 140 people who were employed by its now-shuttered UltimateTV unit will likely be laid off. While Microsoft 's interactive-TV operation builds software for set-top boxes deployed by cable-TV companies, UltimateTV is a different device that Microsoft still sells through satellite operator DirecTV, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. Microsoft announced plans to disband UltimateTV as a business unit in January; only 25 of the 168 employees whose jobs were cut found other positions at Microsoft after a three-month "redeployment" process that ends today, a Microsoft spokeswoman said.
|