Microsoft Pri0
Welcome to Microsoft Pri0: That's Microspeak for top priority, and that's the news and observations you'll find here from Seattle Times reporter Sharon Chan.
February 14, 2008 3:25 PM
Microsoft reorg means 14 promotions
Posted by Benjamin J. Romano
It's official. Microsoft is shuffling the deck -- again. It's all described here.
The short version, starting with the exits:
-- Steve Berkowitz, the former CEO of Ask.com, "will step down as senior vice president of the Online Services Group. He will remain with the company, focusing on a smooth transition of the business, until the end of August 2008."
-- Michael Sievert, "has decided to leave Microsoft to pursue new endeavors," and will be replaced as head of Windows marketing, by Brad Brooks, who gains the title corporate vice president, Windows Consumer Product Marketing.
-- As reported earlier, Pieter Knook, head of Windows Mobile, is heading to Vodafone. His replacement, as reported earlier, is Andrew Lees, formerly head of marketing for the Server and Tools business.
More to come.
Update, 3:57: A Microsoft spokesman said the company is not commenting on the changes beyond what's in the press release. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is quoted therein:
"Along with attracting world-class talent from outside the company, one of my top priorities is growing Microsoft's existing leadership team. Each of these executives will play a critical role in leading Microsoft into the future. Today's promotions are a result of their ability to think strategically on a global scale, the respect they've earned from their peers, customers and partners, and their significant contributions to the company."
The new senior vice presidents, followed by their groups and responsibilities, with new or expanded responsibilities in bold:
-- Satya Nadella, Search, Portals & Advertising Group. Engineering across Live Search, Microsoft adCenter, and Subscriptions, Points and Billing platforms. Responsibility for MSN programming and engineering.
-- Bill Veghte, Online Services & Windows Business Group. All end-user business strategy, sales and marketing across Windows Client, Windows Live, MSN and Search, plus shared responsibility for OEM sales.-- Chris Capossela, Information Worker Product Management Group. Office, unified communications and collaboration, business intelligence and enterprise content management.
-- Kurt DelBene, Office Business Platform Group. Platform products for collaboration, information sharing and business applications.
-- Antoine Leblond, Office Productivity Applications Group. Design, development and testing of Office.
-- Andy Lees, as noted above, Mobile Communications Business. Development, marketing and sales of software and services for mobile devices.
-- S. Somasegar, Developer Division. Developer-related languages, tools and platforms, development centers in India and Canada.
Update, 4:15: But wait, there's even more.
The following executives got the corporate vice president title (anyone else flashing back to their Boy Scout awards ceremony?). Most were previously general managers:
-- Walid Abu-Hadba, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group. Platform strategy and evangelism of developers, IT professionals and partners worldwide. This post was recently vacated by Sanjay Parthasarathy, according to Mary Jo Foley. Not clear where he's ending up.
-- Larry Cohen, Corporate Communications. Public relations, executive communications and employee communications.-- Steve Guggenheimer, Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Division. Manages relationships PC and device makers.
-- Scott Guthrie, .NET Developer Platform. Visual Studio developer tools and Microsoft .NET Framework for building client and Web applications.
-- Roz Ho, Premium Mobile Offerings. New Danger Inc. team and "continue to focus on various consumer-focused premium mobile offerings in mobile communications."
-- Brian Tobey, Entertainment and Devices Division manufacturing and operations. Global manufacturing, supply chain and IT functions within E&D.
Update 4:30: I added links to the Microsoft bio pages of most of the executives affected.
Jul 1, 08 - 11:45 AM
Microsoft buying natural-language search company Powerset
Jun 30, 08 - 05:16 PM
Report: Microsoft to cut Xbox 360 price ahead of big industry event
Jun 27, 08 - 03:52 PM
Gates send-off: Gates has had Ballmer's back from the beginning
Jun 27, 08 - 01:09 PM
Gates send-off: Photos
Jun 27, 08 - 11:48 AM
Gates send-off: Two guys and 90,000 employees

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Bill Gates, who last week ended his full-time involvement with Microsoft, was often right. He made a career, a company and an industry by looking over the horizon.

