“Keeping track of the revolving doors to Redmond’s executive washrooms is turning into a full-time pursuit,” Woody Leonhard reports for InfoWorld.
“Cloud visionary Ray Ozzie announced his departure in October. Cloud-savvy Bob Muglia announced his retirement as president of the Server and Tools Division — including the Azure effort — a couple of weeks ag. Last May, Robbie Bach left as president of the Entertainment Division. Xbox and Zune tech luminary J Allard left at the same time,” Leonhard reports. “Last September, Stephen Elop left as president of the Business Division, including Office. Brad Brooks, the head of Windows marketing to consumers, left last week.”
Leonhard reports, “Now in the past 24 hours we’ve seen details about the defections of three more heavy hitters.”
• Matt Miszewski: Former general manager of worldwide government in the Microsoft Dynamics group
• Dave Thompson: Corporate VP of online services, in charge of Office 365 and Microsoft’s business foray into the cloud
• Alek Kolcz: Sole Principal Scientist at Bing
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The smarter rats never see the bottom.
Exodus, movement of jah people
Hey Ballmer, don’t worry. Someone as smart as you are doesn’t need all these high-priced lackeys hanging around. Keep up the good work, we like your strategy–we like it alot.
I’m enamored with their plan of action. I’m enamored immensely.
How is this article relevant to Apple? People come and go all the time at MS.
Azure has been the most humorous thing to come out of Mafia$oft in years! The word for a cloudless sky is their branding for their cloud-based initiative. Too rich!
@bkire,
Because, is dark the opposite of light or is it the absence of light?
Everything is fine at Microsoft! Nothing to worry about, and certainly nothing to replace the CEO about. All is well!
The emperor has no clothes…
Top brass stampeding the exits right after the earnings announcement. It seems they know something we’ve yet to hear from the media.
They seem to be systematically eliminating/alienating their execs with any vision besides Ballmer’s.
Sweet.
Ballmer can handle those functions himself just fine.
Wonder if these guys were part of a group demanding Ballmer’s ouster?
So the chief and only scientist of the search engine did “Bing and decide” He decided not to Bing anymore.
“I like our executive strategy, I like it a lot!”
“Hey, who left the door open?!”
What do some of these titles mean. “Former general manager of worldwide government in the Microsoft Dynamics group”? “Sole Principal Scientist at Bing”? (Yeah, I guess the “sole” scientist would also be the “principal.”)
Microsoft probably needs to purge ALL if its “old guard” leadership, not just the one guy at the top.
But you watch… Bill Gates is waiting for his “Steve Jobs moment.” Microsoft is still making money, even though they are stumbling aimlessly toward the future. But when things start to feel more desperate (but before Ballmer is replaced), Bill Gates is going to come out of retirement to “save Microsoft,” the company he founded. Sound familiar? He probably won’t succeed (if things have gotten that bad), but Gates is compelled to copy Jobs, one last time.
Should the headline not read “Three Monkeys Departing”? I know we laugh at the head monkey all the time and everyone like to point to the guy above instead of looking in the mirror, but at some point the whole “management” team has to take responsibility. Were they all just “playering around”? The fault of the head monkey is for hiring these useless “executives”. Like the old saying, “A-list people hire A-list people…” To be hired by MSFT was these monkey’s first problem.
Who let the dogs out?….
“I like their strategy. I like it a lot.”
Remember what happened to Rommel when he sided against Hitler?
@ Cubert
‘Dark’ is neither the opposite nor the absence of light. Dark is an overabundance of darkons being sucked into the receptors/bulbs on the ceiling.
Interesting.
Right now, there is a blitz of Microsoft “cloud” commercials running on the local network.
Why would these Microsoft cloud execs leave, just as the MS cloud marketing is getting started?
Okay, maybe not interesting. Instead, this is confusing to me.
Anyone care to explain?
Quartly earnings report followed the same day by three departures. Even more interesting!
@acid
No. It’s one monkey. A three-headed-monkey.
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With so many high level exec left MSFT in such short time, it has to make one wonder what is going on within MSFT. I will be more worry if I am MSFT investor.
what…no comments on the oxymoronic sound of “Brain drain at Microsoft”?
Bill Gates is coming back to replace them all. Just him and Steve, like the old days
Take the production possibilities curve and shift it inward. This would be an exodus of a key input or resource and would deter economic growth.
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/force-factor-review-free-trial-2113761.html
Gates got out before he got blamed. He’s not gonna go back and take the heat.
And he is not now, or ever was, Steve Jobs.
All of this is either a disaster, or a blessing. Depends on whether they were screw-ups, or savants there. We’ll only know in the next few years.
We can all joke but this may well be the beginning of the end for monkey boy. That is unless the M$ board of directors are still comatose. If monkey boy does go, and the Redmond Rat Finks manage to crawl back to relevance, they’ll still have a long climb to reach Apple. I think that the good thing is that they’ll actually help keep Apple from becoming fat and complacent.
Bill Gates is not coming back. He may have been a highly-driven game player, but he never knew one thing about technology, or product innovation. His story was unleashing his daddy’s expertise at predatory contracts, partnerships, licensing, and monopoly behavior, on the naive world of 1980’s tech business.
Roz Ho will probably end up running the damn place.
@bkire
You ask how is this relevant to Apple. How is it NOT relevant. You must be kidding. And if MDN DIDN’T post this news I’d be ticked. This directly reflects Apple’s success and M$’s failure. They can’t take the heat because they know their out tech’ed in every way there.
“How is this article relevant to Apple? People come and go all the time at MS”
Doesn’t look like there’s much coming going on?
@mike
“Doesn’t look like there’s much coming going on?”
And when they do, it’s always too soon.
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everybody who’s not a complete moron leave my firm…
(btw: what´s that “brain” and “microshit” in one and the same text?)
The lights, turn out the lights!
Putting hyperbole aside, I am sure Microsoft has some top-notch people working for them, but they are frustrated and hampered by the sales guys telling them how to do their jobs, setting technically impossible goals, and continually trying to put band-aids on a hopelessly outdated operating system.
Backward compatibility has finally caught up to Micro$oft. That whole enterprise market can be a real anchor. People might not like it, but Apple sets a course and says follow or leave. Enterprises hate that. They want to decide when and how they move forward, thus forcing Micro$oft to maintain such a long history of compatibility that it bloats and hamstrings it’s product offerings.
I wonder when will that revolving door hit Mr. Balmer?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> Oh well, i just hope the board continues to see the “wisdom” of keeping him on.
The Court Jester used to be able to poke fun at anyone in ancient England.
At Microsoft, the Court Jester is the CEO!
Not good.
Sad in a way.
I wonder if these guys, some of them vary smart, have been ruined by their experience at MS? Can they move on to other companies and actually get stuff done?
Two points:
1. Why would Microsoft have a “general manager of worldwide government”? Do they own the UN or something?
2. Why would anybody need to “go to the cloud” to edit their photos? What would be the advantage? That commercial makes no sense at all.
…”Why would Microsoft have a “general manager of worldwide government”? Do they own the UN or something?”
Clearly, it means sales (worldwide government sales).
As for the Sole Principal Scientist at Bing, obviously, the title is just Principal Scientist (Sole was added, probably by InfoWorld, to emphasize that he was working alone, since ‘Principal’ may imply that he was the head of several of them).
If much of your salary has been paid in shares over the past decade, you don’t want to work for negative wages as the stock price plummets. If you leave now, MS has to convert those shares to cash.
Even good people in a good job will leave under these conditions.
Three more to the life boats before the Titanic hits the iceberg. Stay on the current course Balmer, your doing fine.
Don’t panic. Nothing is wrong. We beat expectations…just ahead of Apple again…ahem. We shipped 2 million phone things. Nothing is wrong. Ballmer is doing great and all is well.
Roz Ho 4 CEO
Like it.
May Ballmer remain CEO into the distant future for as long as it takes!!
Must be nice being a m$ft investor last ten years