Heads roll at Microsoft
There’s a general house cleaning going on at Microsoft these days. However, like most corporate purgings, it leaves the biggest problem remaining at the top.
The announcements were part of a broad management reorganization involving seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents.
We’ve elaborated about the lack of vision and leadership at Microsoft, but assigning Andy Lees senior vice president for mobile communications operations was not what we had in mind. Mr. Lees, who had overseen the server business, succeeds Pieter Knook, who, the company said, “made the decision to leave Microsoft to pursue other opportunities.”
Well, here’s another Ballmer brainstorm: when you’re getting your butt kicked in the cellphone market by the likes of Google and Apple, you need to put a server guy in charge of cellphone operations.
According to Canalys, a market research firm, in only a few months of the iPhone’s release, Apple gained 28 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, a greater share of the market than the cellphones using Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software.
In response, Microsoft puts a server guy in charge of cellphones and buys Danger, the maker of the popular Sidekick cellphone. Just brilliant.
Other shakeups included the replacement of Steve Berkowitz, the current senior vice president of Microsoft’s Online Services group. Berkowitz will leave the company this August, the company said.
Responsibility for online operation will be split among three executives [another brilliant Ballmer idea] who will work in the combined organization that handles both Internet activities and the Windows operating system [pure genius], which is run by Kevin Johnson.
It seems that Microsofts answer to their struggling online businesses is to put individuals in charge that are far removed and have little direct knowledge of the business segment.
Is this company for real? How many people know that Microsoft has a “live” service? Have they ever polled anyone? Does anyone know about www.live.com? How about advertising it after you’ve spent all those billions?
This is the worst example of high tech corporate incompetence in years.
Heads should have rolled at Microsoft, but it should have been the block head.
Ballmer has to go.
