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SEATTLE — Microsoft is trying to shake the effects of middle age.
西雅图——微软(Microsoft)正努力摆脱中年危机。
The company, which is now 39 years old, said on Thursday that it was laying off up to 18,000 employees, in an attempt at reinvigoration. The cuts are the first major change made by Satya Nadella, the company’s new chief executive, who said Microsoft needed to be more nimble and focused.
为了重现活力，走过了39个年头的微软周四宣布，将裁减至多1.8万名员工。此次裁员是公司的新首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉(Satya Nadella)的首项重大变革举措。他表示，微软需要变得更为灵活而专注。
The job cuts would be the largest in the company’s history, representing about 14 percent of its work force. Most of the cuts will come from the Nokia mobile phone business Microsoft acquired this year.
本轮岗位削减将会成为公司历史上规模最大的裁员行动，占到全体员工的14%左右。多数裁减将来自微软今年收购的诺基亚(Nokia)手机业务部门。
While Microsoft still makes profits that executives at other companies would be ecstatic to have, it has been beaten on the biggest new trends in tech, including mobile, Internet search and cloud computing. As a result, it is regularly left out of conversations about companies defining the next generation of technology, outflanked and overshadowed by companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.
尽管微软的利润仍会让其他公司的高管们艳羡不已，但它在最大的科技业新动向中连战连败，比如移动科技、互联网搜索和云计算。结果，当谈到左右下一代技术的企业时，微软常被人遗忘，为苹果(Apple)、谷歌(Google)、Facebook和亚马逊(Amazon)等公司所赶超，光芒不再。
Cutting jobs does not mean the company will suddenly begin creating products that people love. And the cuts did not suggest a sharp shift in strategy. But it is a start of something new, in the view of many Microsoft critics, and one that could help the company concentrate on the businesses where it is likely to have the most impact.
裁员并不意味着，微软能立即变出人们喜爱的产品；也不意味着，公司战略的重大调整。不过，在许多批评微软的人士看来，这是一个新的起点，或许会帮助公司把注意力集中到可能产生最大影响的业务部门。
“I think this is a jolt to the culture, which is really needed,” said George F. Colony, the chief executive of Forrester Research, a technology research firm. “It was frozen in place, and lacked new creativity and innovation.”
“我想这是一次文化震动，亟需的震动，”科技调研企业弗雷斯特研究公司(Forrester Research)的首席执行官乔治·F·科隆尼(George F. Colony)说。“微软固步自封，缺乏新鲜的创造力和革新能力。”
Investors have bought into his vision. The company’s stock, which languished during the tenure of Steven A. Ballmer, the company’s previous chief executive, is up about 22 percent since Mr. Nadella assumed the top job. On Thursday, its shares hit a 14-year high.
投资者对他的愿景颇为认同。在前任首席执行官史蒂文·A·鲍尔默(Steven A. Ballmer)治下，公司股价停滞不前，而自从纳德拉接任以来，则飙升了22%左右。本周四，微软股价创下14年来的最高点。
But critics of Microsoft, including many former employees, believe the company has become overly bureaucratic and slow moving. The company has grown to 127,000 employees worldwide, up from 57,000 a decade ago. Apple, which is just a year younger than Microsoft, has about 85,000 employees, nearly half of them in its retail stores. During the first three months of this year, Apple’s revenue and profit were each roughly double Microsoft’s.
然而，批评微软的人士，包括许多以前的员工认为，公司已变得过于官僚，行动迟缓。十年前，微软在全球拥有5.7万名员工，如今则增加到了12.7万名。在历史仅比微软短一年的苹果，员工人数为8.5万名，而且其中近一半在其零售店工作。今年前三个月，苹果的营收与利润均为微软的两倍左右。
On Thursday, Mr. Nadella said in an email to employees that the layoffs were an effort to move faster, a message he has given repeatedly in recent months.
周四，在发给员工的电子邮件中，纳德拉称，裁员是为了轻装上阵。这是他在最近几个月中反复强调的讯息。
“Having a clear focus is the start of the journey, not the end,” he said in the email. “The more difficult steps are creating the organization and culture to bring our ambitions to life.”
“明确重点是旅程的起始，而非终点，”他在邮件中写道。“更困难的是，创造出能把我们的理想转变为现实的组织架构和企业文化。”
He added: “The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our work force.”
他还说：“为我们的理想打造出正确架构的第一步是，调整我们的员工。”
Some investors were hoping for an even bolder move by Mr. Nadella, including trimming some product lines. The company’s investments in the search engine and video game businesses have come under particularly harsh scrutiny, raising questions about whether the company would be better off narrowing its focus to other more lucrative markets.
一些投资者之前表示，希望纳德拉采取更为大胆的举措，比如裁撤部分产品线。微软在搜索引擎和电子游戏业务上的投资尤其受到严厉批评，让人质疑，若是把注意力集中到利润更丰厚的其他市场上，公司是否会表现更好？
Mr. Nadella did, however, take a scalpel to some projects that were especially far afield from its primary business. The company said it planned to shut down Xbox Entertainment Studios, a group in Santa Monica, Calif., that was dedicated to producing original television programming for viewing on Microsoft’s video game system. Microsoft said it would complete some programs that were already underway, including two series based on the Halo game franchise.
纳德拉也的确拿一些远离主要业务的项目开了刀。公司宣布，计划关停Xbox娱乐工作室(Xbox Entertainment Studios)。这座工作室位于加州圣莫尼卡，专门用来打造在微软的电子游戏系统中播放的原创电视节目。微软表示，工作室将完成手头上的一些节目，包括基于《光晕》(Halo)系列游戏改编的两部电视剧。
The biggest chunk of job losses, though — about 12,500 — will come because of the Nokia deal. Mr. Nadella has singled out Microsoft’s mobile business as one of his top priorities, but the layoffs announced on Thursday amount to a significant retrenchment in one area of that market.
然而，此次裁员的最大一部分——约1.25万人——源自收购诺基亚的交易。纳德拉曾将微软的移动业务列为自己的重中之重，但周四宣布的裁员决定是在这个市场的一个领域里的重大收缩。
The vast majority of the jobs being eliminated will come from the Nokia groups, though some will come from overlap at Microsoft resulting from the deal. Microsoft said 1,100 job cuts would come from Finland, and 1,800 from a Nokia factory in Hungary. The result is that Microsoft is letting go of nearly half of the 25,000 people who joined the company from Nokia.
裁减的工作岗位中，绝大多数将来自诺基亚的部门，不过也有一些来自收购交易造成的微软冗余岗位。微软称，其中的1100个岗位来自芬兰，还有1800个岗位来自匈牙利的一家诺基亚工厂。结果，从诺基亚进入微软的2.5万人中，有近一半将不得不离开。
