Microsoft today announced plans for reorganisation. We've previously touched on rumours and speculation that CEO Steve Ballmer was looking to restructure the company into one that focuses on devices and services. Ballmer fired out a letter to Microsoft employees, detailing what was happening and what the outlook is for Microsoft once these changes have been applied.
"Today, we are announcing a far-reaching realignment of the company that will enable us to innovate with greater speed, efficiency and capability in a fast changing world. Today’s announcement will enable us to execute even better on our strategy to deliver a family of devices and services that best empower people for the activities they value most and the enterprise extensions and services that are most valuable to business."
Bringing together its vision, Microsoft will be focusing on further improving and developing Windows 8 and Surface, Windows Phone and Xbox, as well as the numerous services and products Redmond has available. The changes are huge and will affect the company as a whole, reaching the end goal of a "One Microsoft."
Microsoft will now be organised by function and "optimised for speed and strategic alignment." The operating systems engineering group will be headed up by Terry Myerson, and will span across the Xbox, Windows Phone, PC and back-end systems. Julie Larson-Green will take responsibility for the devices and studios engineering group, overseeing hardware development.
The applications and services engineering group will see Qi Lu at the helm, broadening apps and services core technologies in productivity, communication, search as well as other information categories. Satya Nadella will take control of the cloud and enterprise engineering group, which will lead development of back-end technologies, including datacenter, database and specific technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and development tools.
The advanced strategy and research group will be led by Eric Rudder, while Tami Reller will take on all marketing. Mark Penn will be taking a broader view of marketing strategy and will work with Reller. COO Kevin Turner will continue leading worldwide sales, field marketing, services, support and stores, as well as IT, licensing and commercial operations. Tony Bates will focus on partnerships with the business development and evangelism group. He will work with OEMs, silicon vendors, Nokia and partners.
Amy Hood will centralise all product group finance organisations. Finally Brad Smith will continue as general counsel with responsibility for the company's legal and corporate affairs, while Lisa Brummel will lead the HR team and map it to the new organisation.
As well as the new changes, Steve Ballmer also noted numerous departures, including Kurt DelBene who will be retiring from Microsoft. The CEO continues to go into the success of Microsoft and how the company as a whole can continue to improve with multiple buzzwords utilised. He closes off with a simple "Let's go." We'll have to wait and see to determine whether or not the above restructuring will have made any difference.
Be sure to read the letter in its entirety for all the details.
Rich Edmonds is a word conjurer at Windows Central, covering everything related to Windows, gaming, and hardware. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a device chassis. You can follow him over on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.
