Microsoft has announced that it will fire around 18,000 employees over the next year, or almost 15% of its global workforce of 127,000. The bulk of the layoffs -- 12,500 -- will be former Nokia employees who are no longer needed after the acquisition. The mass job-cut is occurring for two key reasons: There is a lot of 'synergy and strategic alignment' to be made following Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia -- and, of course, tons of space must be made so that Nadella can successfully reorient the company towards his Mobile And Cloud vision.