Microsoft News Tracker

There was a bit of a kerfuffle in July when it was revealed that Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach sold $6.2 million in Microsoft shares in the run-up to the announcement of the billion dollar band-aid for defective Xbox 360 units. Executives often use scheduled stock sales to avoid any appearance of insider trading and still pick up some walking around money, but Bach’s sales were unscheduled. Now it turns out he actually sold an additional $3 million worth of shares that somehow fell through an insider sale reporting crack:

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In my posts yesterday on the Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting 2007, I focused on the concrete announcements and eschewed the high level pronouncements because frankly I was hard pressed to be sufficiently acerbic without appearing unduly negative. I don’t know that I have really resolved the quandary, but here are some thoughts on Microsoft’s new business initiatives as promulgated at FAM 2007 by Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, Robbie Bach and Kevin Johnson.

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Dan Fost and Ryan Kim at the SF Chronicle hooked up with Robbie Bach, Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division President for a serving of his trademark happy talk about the bright prospects for Microsoft’s sagging entertainment initiatives. Among the less than meaty tidbits was an update on the Zune which Bach reports will pass the million unit sales mark in June.
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Judge tells Microsoft to pay up in Alcatel-Lucent patent case. There won’t be any $1.5 billion checks any time soon though - just more legal maneuvering.

Microsoft Poised to Rule Entertainment, Devices World according to Robbie Bach at least. eWeek needed 3 articles to encompass his full rendition of “High Hopes“. Related: Microsoft fails to impress during Bach’s MIX07 keynote. Too bad the developers walked out, because they missed The Economist’s Andrew Rashbass who was both the life of the MIX07 party and the specter at the feast.

Only slightly more illuminating than Bach was Steve Ballmer’s interview with USA Today, but he certainly has a jones for the iPhone which led some to wonder about his math.

Pink Zune Now Available to the Rest of Us. Yep, that’ll do it.

Yahoo wins Comcast.net eyeball auction. I guess Google and Microsoft can’t win them all and it’s surprisingly a bigger deal than you might think since Comcast is the largest US ISP and their customers actually use the homepage.

Japanese Government to Embrace Linux - $10B worth of systems in 2007 and it’s $17B if you count local governments.

Microsoft to Challenge $75.5M Attorney Fee in Iowa Class-Action Lawsuit, but only the $0.5M part since they already agreed to the $75M.

Vista angst fodder

• Vista draining laptop batteries, patience. It’s all Aero’s fault.
• Dell, Intel won’t deploy Vista until SP1. Join the party.

Update 5/8: MSFTextrememakeover provides the requisite corporal punishment for the Robbie Bach interview mentioned above in Microsoft’s $6M+ (Per Year) Man.

Bryan Lee, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Entertainment Business, who in December 2005 took over “as head of a new entertainment business charged with overseeing the company’s growing digital efforts in music, television and video,” has decided to move on:

A senior Microsoft executive who oversaw the launch of its Zune digital music player plans to leave the company, the world’s largest software maker said on Wednesday.

Bryan Lee, corporate vice president at Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, also played a critical role in shaping the Xbox game console business and the introduction of its Internet Protocol television software.

Lee is a key deputy of Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division. J Allard, a rising star within Microsoft and one of the early Xbox leaders, will now take full responsibility for the Zune business.

Lee plans to leave the company in the next several weeks to pursue personal interests, Microsoft said.

It could be a variety of things of course, but the natural inclination is to view this as a rearrangement of the deck chairs after HMS Zune clipped the iPod iceberg.

Update: Speaking of which, here’s alarming news from Microsoft’s Zune Insider:

If you have a Zune that isn’t skipping (which, truth be told, is the majority of owners), move along, nothing to see here, move along. But if the content from ZMP is skipping on your device, I want to tell you that the team is aware, and is working on it.

Update 2/2: Antone Gonsalves at InformationWeek:

In other executive shuffling, Joe Belfiore, VP of Windows Media Center, and Enrique Rodriguez, VP of Microsoft’s TV Division, who both reported to Lee, will now report to Bach.