Friday, May 18, 2007

A Ribbon UI for Visual Studio Code Name Orcas?

Mary Jo Foley reports today:

On May 18, Microsoft announced that it is moving its Server and Tools unit out from under Platforms and Services to the Microsoft Business Division (MBD). That means Senior Vice President Bob Muglia’s group now falls under MBD President Jeff Raikes’ organization. Muglia will report directly to Raikes as part of the shuffle.

Microsoft also is moving its Developer and Platform Evangelism team under Corporate Vice President Sanjay Parthasarathy to the Server and Tools Business unit under Muglia.

As "The Life of Riley" protagonist William Bendix would say, "What a revolting development this is!"

Update 5/21/2007: Gavin Clarke of Info2, a computer-industry analysis firm, added an insightful comment that links to his 5/21/2007 Solving the Microsoft re-org puzzle post. Gavin is more optimistic than I about the future for Servers and Tools as part of the Office (MBD)group.

Update 5/18/2007, 5:00 PM PDT: Mary Jo's source for her report apparently is an e-mail to Microsoft employees first reported by Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Todd Bishop and later confirmed by Waggener*Edstrom. Joe Wilcox just posted an analysis of the reorg.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Barely a quarter passes at Microsoft without some shuffling of the corporate furniture. This, though, is significant for anyone working with, or against, Microsoft in ondemand information, collaboration and online business services. The change should deepen data, interface and workflow integration between Office 2007, SharePoint, SQL Server and the Dynamics ERP and CRM applications. Integration fits Microsoft's strategy of turning Office into a front-end for back-office applications and data sources like CRM and ERP. Also, cast your mind back a week, where Jeff Raikes said the next version of SQL Server, Katmai, would become the engine for Microsoft's BI strategy. And putting SharePoint, SQL Server and Dynamics together makes sense, as SharePoint is the foundation for Office Live. Putting the teams in the same division as servers could mean they solve some of the gaping holes and functional limitations that currently exist in Office Live and CRM Live. I’ve written more here:
http://sku.typepad.com/omedia/2007/05/the_puzzle_that.html