Even Though 'Microsoft Overslept For The Marathon Of How To Get Into The Phone Business', It Won't 'Completely Exit The Market'

Microsoft Corporation MSFT announced on Wednesday that it would be laying off 7,600 employees or 6 percent of its workforce majorly from its phone business. The company also expects to take a $7.6 billion hit from its acquisition of Nokia's smartphone business.

Nick Bilton, The New York Times Columnist, was on CNBC Wednesday to weigh in on this.

Difficult Thing For Satya Nadella To Figure Out

"One of the problems is that the current CEO is kind of suffering from the decision making of the previous CEO," Bilton said. "And it's almost like Microsoft overslept for the marathon of how to get into the phone business and now they are trying to figure out how to catch up. I don't know how they'll do it."

He continued, "I don't know how they restructure their phone business, I don't know how they get new users on the platform. I mean, you have got Android and Apple and all these other companies in China that are now competing with them. This is definitely going to be a difficult thing for Satya to figure out."

They need Mobile Platform

Bilton also highlighted why he thinks Microsoft won't leave the phone hardware business unit, saying, "I think, part of the reason why I don't think they are going to completely exit the market is because of these other products that they have. If they are going to get into wearable computing and virtual reality and all these different things and cloud computing and continue to grow that business as they are in a very successful way, they also need a mobile platform to be able to do that."

"And that's why I think that maybe it's going to be experimental, maybe there are some secret solutions that Satya has that we don't know about," Bilton said.