Microsoft shakes executive ranks
Microsoft Corp. announced the departure of several executives Thursday, among them a Silicon Valley veteran recruited to help fix its unprofitable Web business and one in charge of marketing Windows Vista. It also announced the promotion of more than a dozen other executives.
The changes come two weeks after Microsoft offered to buy Web portal and search competitor Yahoo Inc. for more than $40 billion, a move that industry watchers see broadly as an admission that Microsoft’s own Web strategy had failed.
If the proposed Yahoo takeover is completed, Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., is expected to make more radical changes as it blends the two companies into a more formidable challenger to Google Inc., the dominant player in the lucrative Internet search and advertising markets.
Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said Thursday’s announcement was unrelated to the Yahoo negotiations.
Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online business group, will hand off his duties to three insiders: Satya Nadella, currently in charge of search and search advertising engineering; Bill Veghte, a Windows marketing executive; and Brian McAndrews, formerly the chief executive of online advertising group AQuantive, which Microsoft acquired last year.
Nadella and Veghte were promoted to senior vice president.
The top executive in Microsoft’s mobile phone software business, Pieter Knook, also is leaving Microsoft. He will lead a new division of British cellular operator Vodafone Group. Andy Lees, formerly of Microsoft’s server and tools division, was promoted to replace Knook.
No reason was given for Berkowitz’s departure. He joined Microsoft in 2006 after turning around Ask.com, which was acquired by IAC/InterActiveCorp during his tenure as CEO.
Brought in to help turn around Microsoft’s own Web business, Berkowitz was charged with expanding the audience on its disparate MSN and Windows Live sites -- making them more attractive to advertisers -- and forging new business relationships, such as the ad partnership announced last summer with social news site Digg.com.
