Microsoft News Tracker

Up until today Kevin John was the president of Microsoft’s Platforms & Services Division (PSD) which develops Windows and Microsoft’s online properties including Windows Live and MSN. Now Kevin Johnson is out and PSD has been split into two pieces reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Platforms & Services Division (PSD) will be split into two groups: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services, with both groups reporting directly to CEO Steve Ballmer. Microsoft also announced that PSD President Kevin Johnson will be leaving the company. Johnson will work to ensure a smooth transition.
…
Effective immediately, senior vice presidents Steven Sinofsky, Jon DeVaan and Bill Veghte will report directly to Ballmer to lead Windows/Windows Live.
…
In the Online Services Business, Microsoft will create a new senior lead position and will conduct a search that will span internal and external candidates. In the meantime, Senior Vice President Satya Nadella will continue to lead Microsoft’s search, MSN and ad platform engineering efforts.
…
In addition, Senior Vice President Brian McAndrews will continue to lead the Advertiser & Publisher Solutions Group (APS).

So was Johnson pushed or did he jump? The rumor is that Johnson is now going to run Juniper Networks, which while nice enough, doesn’t seem like a sufficient opportunity to justify a voluntary departure so the smart money is on pushed.

One problem could have been Vista’s lackluster reputation, but Microsoft is still printing money with Windows so a more likely cause is the continuing disappointment from Microsoft’s online efforts. I’m sure it also didn’t help that Johnson was the point man on Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo (or pieces thereof) which appears to have finally come to naught.

As for what it all means, I see no reason to expect significant changes in either products or financial performance - it was merely a rearrangement of the deck chairs which won’t be complete until new executives heading the two groups are named (assuming that Steve Ballmer doesn’t really want to run Windows/Windows Live himself). Any expectations of radical alterations are clearly premature.

In May, Microsoft and Research In Motion (RIM) announced an agreement to bring Windows Live Messenger to the Blackberry and yesterday it was released:

Incoming messages are received through the Push technology, and users can send pictures, use emoticons and have a customisable display picture. The client in simple and lightweight, but like the BlackBerry’s user base, is designed for productive users. All in all this is a simple application, but if you’re a Blackberry user, who natively uses Windows Live ID, it is a must.

Blackberry users can download it here.