Microsoft is closing its Africa Development Centre (ADC) in Nairobi, according to a person who worked at the engineering hub and told CIO Africa that staff were informed on Monday, October 12. The move is part of a global restructuring that has already cost the company jobs in several markets, including in Africa.
The company did not use the word closure. “These are proposed changes that are part of the global changes within Microsoft. They have impacted the engineering department in Kenya, but the company will continue operating in the country and will continue supporting its customers in the region,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CIO Africa.
The spokesperson added that Microsoft was “communicating directly with employees in Kenya about proposed changes to our engineering operations” and was keeping those discussions private. The firm has not said how many people are affected.
Government steps in
The news landed on the same day that ICT and Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary William Kabogo met a Microsoft delegation led by Jeff Bullwinkel, the company’s vice president and deputy general counsel for corporate, external and legal affairs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Microsoft’s East Africa team, headed by Angela Ng’ang’a, also attended.
“I stressed the importance of retaining local talent, protecting jobs at Microsoft’s Nairobi engineering Centre and sustaining investor confidence in Kenya’s technology sector,” Kabogo said after the meeting.
He said Microsoft had reaffirmed its long-term commitment to Kenya. The two sides are expected to draw up a joint action plan on AI adoption in government, digitising public services, cybersecurity, digital infrastructure and skills, People Daily reported.
A blow to the hub story
Microsoft opened the ADC with sites in Nairobi and Lagos to build engineering capacity on the continent, with African developers working on software, cloud and security products used worldwide. For Nairobi, the centre was a headline example of a global firm doing core product work in Kenya rather than only selling into the market.
Losing it cuts against the government’s pitch that Kenya is the region’s natural base for AI, cloud and software investment. Senior engineers released by a firm of Microsoft’s size are also likely to be picked up quickly by local fintechs, multinational shared-service centres and remote employers abroad, which softens the hit to the talent pool but not to the country’s image.
Microsoft keeps its sales, partner and customer-support presence in Kenya, so businesses and government agencies buying Azure, Microsoft 365 and related services should not see changes to their contracts. The company’s earlier commitments on local cloud and data-centre capacity were not addressed in Monday’s statements.
The details that matter most to affected staff, including headcount, severance terms and timelines, have not been made public. Under Kenyan employment law, redundancies require notice to the labour office and to affected employees, so those numbers may surface in the coming weeks.
Sources: CIO Africa | People Daily | Kahawatungu
