In a note to employees—and really, to the rest of the world, too, since it was published in Microsoft's press center—Nadella announced another 7,800 job cuts, which will primarily hit Microsoft's phone business. That's in addition to the whopping 18,000 jobs Nadella last year said he planned to cut, mainly employees who had joined Microsoft through its acquisition of flailing phone company Nokia.

All in, this amounts to the loss of around one fifth of Microsoft's total global headcount, symbolizing a swift and stunning admission by Nadella that if Microsoft can't compete with the big dogs like Apple and Samsung in the smartphone wars, it's better off bowing out. "We are moving from a strategy to grow a standalone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem that includes our first-party device family," Nadella writes.