The world's top software firm, Microsoft, is planning a massive reduction in its workforce where up to 15,000 jobs may be axed this month, says a media report.

"Microsoft is preparing to announce the first wide scale layoffs in its 32-year history, with up to 15,000 jobs at risk, according to some predictions," 'The Times' said in a report published online.

Speculation about job cuts was triggered by a report by Fudzilla, a technology blog site, which said employees were told that the software group was preparing for major layoffs from its global operations on January 15, it added.

Earlier, a brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co's analyst Brad Reback had asked Microsoft to cut its workforce by 10 per cent or about 9,100 employees.

"Such layoff exercise "would be a healthy move for the company," Reback added. Microsoft had close to 91,000 employees on its payrolls at end of July-September quarter.

Further, 'The Times' report stated that the news of job losses came amid the company being forced to apologise for an embarrassing hiccup with its Zune digital music player.

A bug in the device's internal clock in the original 30-gigabyte version failed to cope with the last day of the leap year and thousands of owners were left with a frozen screen on December 31.

The report quoted Microsoft statement as saying, "the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30 GB devices will automatically reset."

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