“Microsoft has fired Chief Information Officer Stuart Scott, providing the terse explanation that he was dismissed for the ‘violation of company policies,'” Wendy Tanaka and Brian Caulfield report for Forbes.
MacDailyNews Take: He probably did or said something ethical.
Tanaka and Caulfield continue, “In a statement, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said his dismissal came as the result of an internal investigation. The company wouldn’t provide details about what policies were violated or how.”
“Microsoft said General Manager Shahla Aly and Corporate Vice President Alain Crozier will take over Scott’s duties until a replacement is found,” Tanaka and Caulfield report.
Full article here.
Richard Koman reports for NewsFactor, “Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, said the ‘pattern indicates some sort of HR violation.'”
Koman reports, “The CIO position is ‘very important not just to Microsoft’s internal I.T. but also to how Microsoft tests products,’ Helm said in a telephone interview. ‘The CIO is supposed to be Microsoft’s first and best customer. So it’s important that Microsoft get somebody into that position,’ he said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft tests products? If so, perhaps they should start testing them on real people instead of IT drones.
Koman continues, “Scott’s job included both internal-facing I.T., where he was ‘responsible for security, infrastructure, messaging, and business applications for all of Microsoft,’ according to the bio, as well as prerelease product testing. Microsoft I.T. ‘deploys prerelease versions of Microsoft products throughout the company,’ Microsoft said, improving quality, enhancing products, and identifying new market opportunities.”
Full article here.
Chief Information Officer – ‘nuf said
maybe he had an iPod?
macaholic,
If Microsoft fired employees for owning iPods, their buildings would be pretty much empty:
Microsoft management frustrated as 80 percent of MS workers with music players have Apple iPods
One grope too many.
Does anybody know what he did do?
Probably asked why Vista was such a mess compared to Leopard or got caught sneaking a Mac into the building.
Fred Mertz, that story is awesome but it’s pretty old, I’d be interested in what the current numbers are?
hmm.. MDN word “numbers” go figure
That was his “welcome back” from his 5 year vaction. see Vista.
They found Mr. Scott visited this web page http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1028.html
My guess would be he was caught racking up some X-servers for Network security and traffic monitoring instead of using a MS Product.
He has an iPod, iPhone and a MacBook Pro.
Ballmer saw him.
Was he using Leopard, instead of Vista?
Microsoft doesn’t take kindly to people that do something right.
They have very specific fraud and extortion quotas that he failed to meet.
But he’s actually pretty lucky. Ballmer wanted to eat him. Gates just wanted to sever his arms.
Since he was ultimately in charge of testing products (according to the article) this may have something to do with the poor response that Vista is getting in the press and with Microsoft’s customers. It’s an interesting story. I’m looking forward to the follow ups.
If I think of Microsoft testing products I think of the scene in 30 Rock where Alec Baldwin’s character – Jack Donaghy – is conducting some market research and says: “If you say you like it you can have some Pizza” as he holds an open pizza box in front of them.
Maybe he was trying to upgrade everyone internally to Vista and it was pissing everyone off?
He told Clippy to get bent?
He got drunk and made Bob jokes at Melinda Gates’ cocktail party?
He hid Ballmer’s “therapy chairs”?
Actually, the strongest rumor is that he was having an affair with a VP who was a direct subordinate. Bitterness ensued from coworkers over her promotion, yada, yada, yada.
sounds to me that the article explained why he was fired… he obviously wasn’t doing his job. if he’s in charge of security, making sure the software runs right, etc… he def wasn’t doing his job, AT ALL!
I guess she will be known as the million dollar girfriend.
caught using Google.
I read yesterday that he may have been having an affair with a co-worker, but that the real problem was that he was expensing his hotel room. Rumor.
The co-worker was me!
I wouldn’t want an ESPN SportsCenter anchor being my CIO either. Boo-yah!
MacDailyNews Take: He probably did or said something ethical.
Too funny – a classic.
Peace.
Chief Information Officer Stuart Scott got an iPod, not a Zune!