Microsoft plans to cut more than 150 positions in a major restructuring of its troubled television business based in Mountain View, sources close to the company said Monday.
The reorganization will eliminate Microsoft's UltimateTV division in Silicon Valley, which has about 500 employees. About two-thirds of those employees will be consolidated automatically into other Microsoft groups. The remaining 168 employees will be given three months to find other jobs within Microsoft or face severance.The UltimateTV subscription service still will be offered, despite the restructuring of the division in charge of it. The service combines television-based e-mail and Web-surfing services with DirecTV satellite-television programming and digital video recording. But the $449 set-top boxes ran into serious delays before the launch of the service last year.
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