Microsoft News Tracker

Press Release:

CEO Ballmer appoints presidents of three core divisions; Allchin announces retirement plan.

Sept. 20, 2005 — In order to drive greater agility in the execution of its software and services strategy, Microsoft Corp. today announced a realignment of the company into three newly formed divisions, each of which will be led by its own president. The Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division will be led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-presidents; Jeff Raikes has been named president of the Microsoft Business Division; and Robbie Bach has been named as president of Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division. In addition, the company said Ray Ozzie will expand his role as chief technical officer by assuming responsibility for helping drive its software-based services strategy and execution across all three divisions.

The company also announced that Allchin plans to retire at the end of calendar year 2006 following the commercial availability of Windows Vista™, the next-generation Microsoft® Windows® operating system.

Whichever comes last, presumably.

Johnson will succeed Allchin, taking ownership of the Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division, which comprises Windows Client, Server and Tools, and MSN®.
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Eric Rudder, senior vice president of Server and Tools, will be taking on a new role working directly for Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect. Rudder will focus on some of the company’s key advanced development efforts as well as overall technical strategy. Rudder will transition into his new role following the launch of Visual Studio® and SQL Server™ 2005 later this year.
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The Information Worker business and Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) will combine to form the Microsoft Business Division, with Doug Burgum, senior vice president, reporting to Raikes.
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The new Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division, which combines the current Home and Entertainment Division with the current Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, will consolidate Microsoft’s industry engagement around devices to deliver even richer and more relevant scenarios for individuals at work, at home and when they’re mobile. It will also bring more focus to the company’s efforts in entertainment and related devices and services. Accordingly, the senior vice president of Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, Pieter Knook, will report to Bach.

Pardon my skepticism, but reorganizations rarely make things better and this one seems to merely insert another layer of management. I did, however, find interesting the inclusion of MSN with Client and Server and Tools. Sounds like Web 2.0!

EU antitrust chief weighs more action on Microsoft:

Almost 18 months after ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominance in the market for desktop operating system software, Europe’s antitrust authority is considering opening new cases against the company, its top official, Neelie Kroes, said Monday.

Last year’s ruling resulted in a 497 million, or $603 million, fine against Microsoft and an order to change the way it sells its software in Europe. The changes have not formally taken effect yet and the ruling is under appeal.

But in an interview, Kroes said that she was not going to wait for the courts before considering more action against the company. “We have had informal complaints, and we are using our time now to look at them,” she said. “We’re not going to wait and do nothing.”

Hit the link for the details, but the new, “informal” complaints are about Office and Vista bundling.

Qwest and Microsoft to Deliver VoIP Services via the Desktop to Small and Medium-Sized Businesses:

Today at Fall 2005 VON, Qwest Communications International Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced that they are working together to provide small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers with a converged communications solution. By integrating the Microsoft® Solution for Enhanced VoIP services with Qwest’s OneFlex™ Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services, Qwest will offer SMB subscribers a comprehensive managed suite of services that combines VoIP, e-mail, Internet access, collaboration, presence, instant messaging and desktop services.

Qwest and Microsoft expect the service will be available in 2006. Qwest is the first service provider to integrate the Microsoft Solution for Enhanced VoIP Services.
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The Microsoft Solution for Enhanced VoIP Services combines hosted versions of Microsoft server products including Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 and Windows® SharePoint® Services with Sylantro Systems’ Application Feature Server.

Here’s the original Microsoft/Sylantro press release and the the Hosted Messaging and Collaboration home page.

Update: Today, AOL also announced a VoIP offering. Russell Shaw has the details:

This morning, AOL is announcing the impending availability of its new TotalTalk VoIP service.

The service, which will debut October 4, will be embedded within AOL’s new AIM Triton software, which will be posted for download in the next day or two.

The Microsoft Internet Explorer Weblog has the details:

The developer community has asked for a long time: Where is the free developer toolbar for IE? We recognized the popularity of free IE tools like Fiddler and we listened to your feedback. I am glad to announce the next addition to our developer tool support: The IE dev toolbar. This tool will help developers to explore their HTML documents and understand everything about it.
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At Chris’ talk at the PDC on Tuesday, he announced that we would have a beta version available very soon. This is now ready and available for download. It is designed to work on IE6 as well as IE7.