Paying a bill of Ballmerian proportions

Joe Copeland

Joe Copeland Jun 30, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

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                <h1>Paying a bill of Ballmerian proportions</h1>
                <h2><p>Commentary from business writers on Microsoft's latest layoff announcement and the related writeoff of $7.6 billion from the purchase of phonemaker Nokia: The company is cleaning up after Steve Ballmer. A Reuters columnist says buying Nokia "was the last in a string of bad deals struck</p></h2>
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               <p>By <a href="/author/joe-copeland-crosscut-com/">Joe Copeland</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
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            <p>Commentary from business writers on Microsoft's latest layoff announcement and the related writeoff of $7.6 billion from the purchase of phonemaker Nokia: The company is cleaning up after Steve Ballmer. A Reuters columnist <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/breakingviews/2015/07/08/microsoft-gets-7-6-bln-wakeup-call-from-nokia/?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">says</a> buying Nokia "was the last in a string of bad deals struck by Chief Executive Satya Nadella’s predecessor." A <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/technology/microsoft-layoffs.html?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">New York Times story </a>says Wednesday's announcement "the deal was a multibillion-dollar strategic blunder by Mr. Ballmer."</p>
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Commentary from business writers on Microsoft's latest layoff announcement and the related writeoff of $7.6 billion from the purchase of phonemaker Nokia: The company is cleaning up after Steve Ballmer. A Reuters columnist says buying Nokia "was the last in a string of bad deals struck by Chief Executive Satya Nadella’s predecessor." A New York Times story says Wednesday's announcement "the deal was a multibillion-dollar strategic blunder by Mr. Ballmer."

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By Joe Copeland

Joe Copeland is the former senior editor&nbsp;for Crosscut, where he has been an editor since 2010. Before that, he was an editorial writer and columnist for the Seattle P-I and editorial page edi