Microsoft Shuffles Online Services, Mobile Execs
244377
TechWeb - A total of 18 executives have changed their roles this time around, including 14 promotions, three departures and a temporary shift.
313802
Sprint Nextel Corp , the third  largest U.S. mobile service, said on Thursday Chief Financial  Officer Paul Saleh and two other top executives would leave the  company in a new management shake-up.
725972
The head of Microsoft&#39;s mobile phone group is jumping ship, moving to U.K. mobile operator Vodafone Group to run its Internet services.Pieter Knook will join Vodafone on March 10, where he will lead a new unit delivering consumer Internet services, Vodafone said Thursday.Vodafone&#39;s announcement comes in the wake of press reports that Microsoft will reshuffle its executive team later Thursday.Knook&#39;s replacement as head of Microsoft&#39;s mobile communications business is likely to be Andrew Lees, currently with the company&#39;s server and tools group, according to a report on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday night, which cited a person familiar with the situation. Both Knook and Lees are Microsoft veterans, working with the company since 1990.Microsoft announced another change in its mobile business on Wednesday, with the acquisition of mobile device maker Danger, marking its first move into the manufacture of mobile phones. Until now, it has left the hardware to other companies, licensing its mobile operating system to them.There will be other staff changes at Microsoft, with three other vice presidents expected to leave in the coming months, the WSJ report said. It named Michael Sievert, currently in charge of Windows marketing, and Steve Berkowitz, a manager of the company&#39;s online business, as among those who will leave.Vodafone said Knook&#39;s arrival will allow it to move forward with its &quot;Mobile Plus&quot; strategy to generate new revenue streams such as mobile advertising, and integrated mobile and PC offerings.Microsoft representatives could not be immediately reached for comment.
566313
Microsoft yesterday took the wraps off a new set-top box aimed at tying together the living room, the PC, and the company&#39;s MSN network and content.
391964
Microsoft confirmed&#160;a number of high-level executive changes, moves that could be designed to better position the company to digest an acquisition of Yahoo, an analyst said.In addition to a number of executive promotions, Microsoft announced that Bill Veghte, senior vice president of the Online Services and Windows Business Group; Satya Nadella, senior vice president, Search, Portals and Advertising Group; and Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of Microsoft&#39;s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group, are all taking on new responsibilities in running Microsoft&#39;s online services, including Windows Live, Search, and MSN.Microsoft may be positioning Nadella to take on the responsibility of the technical integration of Yahoo if the acquisition happens, said Rob Helm, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. &quot;Microsoft is anticipating a shift in its online strategy around the purchase of Yahoo, which means, among other things, that they&#39;re replacing people running the old strategy,&quot; he said.If Nadella is being brought in to integrate Yahoo into Microsoft, he doesn&#39;t have the best track record, said Helm. He was the head of the Microsoft Dynamics unit and was charged with integrating a couple of other acquisitions, including Great Plains. &quot;On his watch, relatively little happened in the way of successful integration,&quot; said Helm. However, Nadella had the post for just a year, so perhaps he didn&#39;t have the opportunity to do more, he said.Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group, is moving out of a role in Microsoft&#39;s online group. He&#39;ll step down from his position in August, Microsoft said. He plans to stay with the company, but Microsoft did not say in what capacity.Despite these positioning moves, the Yahoo deal is still uncertain, Helm said. &quot;It&#39;s still up in the air, though it seems unlikely that Microsoft would walk away after a bid like this,&quot; he said.Microsoft also said that Andy Lees, who leads marketing for the Server and Tools Marketing and Solutions group, will take over for Pieter Knook as senior vice president of the Mobile Communications Business. Word of Knook&#39;s departure surfaced on Thursday with an announcement from Vodafone that he&#39;d joined the mobile operator.Lees&#39; appointment, as someone with a marketing background, seems to follow a shift in the mobile group toward a focus on consumers, Helm said. Microsoft recently announced plans to buy Danger, a youth-focused mobile software company, and appointed a new marketing executive to target consumers. Pressure from the iPhone, which has done remarkably well in a very brief time, could be driving the shift in strategy for the mobile group at Microsoft, Helm said.Other announcements from Microsoft include news that Brad Brooks will take over for Michael Sievert, who is leaving the company, as corporate vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing. Steve Guggenheimer will become corporate vice president of the Original Equipment Manufacturer Division, moving on from a marketing position with Microsoft&#39;s Application Platform effort.
336492
Microsoft Corp. sees the shift by  business organizations to Web-based phone systems running on  its software to generate "billions" of dollars in revenue for  the company, a top executive said on Tuesday.
373295
Microsoft's new reorganization splits responsibility for its online offerings between four executives, most of whom also are responsible for parts of the Windows operating system. That resembles the complex organization at Yahoo, which bred the infighting and paralysis, that many Yahoo employees blame for its ills.
51740
Yahoo made e-mail, Internet search and other services available on mobile telephones with Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating systems.
532295
Microsoft yanks wish list of features for Vista's successor.
375541
Microsoft's COO hasn't been at the company as long as Gates or Ballmer, but he's learning the ropes. Now, he's spreading the word on new online services. Are partners listening?
99948
Web services are becoming increasingly popular for linking software programs. Now, Microsoft and some other big companies are pitching the technology as a way to manage everything from big corporate servers to mobile phones.
414303
Microsoft is announcing an upgrade of Windows Mobile. But a Gartner analyst called it "an interim release" that doesn't fix all of the problems in the existing version of the operating system.
616329
Microsoft Corp.  introduced  software on Monday to manage advanced mobile phones much like  personal computers, taking aim at a business dominated by  Research in Motion's  BlackBerry.
697289
Microsoft plans to announce beefed up remote Windows Mobile phone management capabilities with the introduction of System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 on Tuesday.The software will allow IT administrators to remotely secure and manage mobile phones much the same way they manage PCs and laptops, said John O&#39;Rourke, general manager of Microsoft&#39;s mobile communications business.Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer planned to make the announcement during the opening speech at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment conference in San Francisco.IT administrators using Mobile Device Manager will be able to remotely do things like turn off a phone&#39;s camera and prevent the use of unauthorized messaging services. That&#39;s important for companies that must comply with regulations requiring them to record information sent from employee devices, O&#39;Rourke said.Mobile Device Manager integrates with Microsoft&#39;s System Center so administrators with that software can use the existing active directory and group policy feature to disseminate policies. For example, an organization may already have a set of policies for a group that contains field sales people so an administrator can choose to set mobile policies for that same group, pushing out changes to all of their Windows Mobile phones at once.The software also supports secure access to corporate information through VPN (virtual private network) connections. That allows phone users to access files that may be behind the corporate firewall and it also lets them use Web-based applications that reside on the corporate intranet, O&#39;Rourke said. Some companies may have internal Web-based expense reporting forms, for example, and the secure connection means that Windows Mobile phone users can use those forms from their phones.Mobile Device Manager comprises client and server software. Windows Mobile users will need to update their phones with the software. That process can happen a number of different ways, including requiring users to connect their phones to a PC and install the new software. Microsoft is working with device makers and operators to coordinate the update, similar to the way that they worked together to update devices to&#160;Windows Mobile 6.0&#160;from the previous version of the software. AT&amp;T is expected to announce at the conference how it will update devices on its network, O&#39;Rourke said.Once phone users have the software, they&#39;ll need to connect to the corporate network and log on before an administrator can start remotely managing the device. That&#39;s a one-time process, similar to one that corporate workers often go through when using a new laptop, he said.Microsoft expects to release System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 in the first half of next year, O&#39;Rourke said. The server software should be able to support as many as 5,000 users, although it&#39;s not complete so the exact number hasn&#39;t been determined, he said.Windows Mobile 6.0 already offers some remote management capabilities. For example, an IT administrator can remotely wipe a Windows Mobile device in case it&#39;s stolen and manage passwords for the device, without Mobile Device Manager.Some Windows Mobile competitors also have similar remote management capabilities. Nokia&#39;s Intellisync device management offering, for example, allows IT administrators to remotely manage a variety of devices, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Palm phones, as well as laptops and desktops. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server also includes group-based remote administration and management functions. Microsoft&#39;s Mobile Device Manager will only manage Windows Mobile Devices.
220481
Microsoft&#39;s new Mobile Device Manager faces a shortcoming because it is exclusive to Windows Mobile devices, but that might change, an executive said on Tuesday.Scott Horn, general manager at Microsoft&#39;s mobile and embedded device group, left the door open to potential future support for non-Windows Mobile devices.&quot;Today, we have nothing to announce,&quot; he said. &quot;But we&#39;re looking at it, we&#39;re thinking about it. Who knows what the future brings?&quot; Horn spoke during a press lunch at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.He mentioned that Microsoft has in the past licensed ActiveSync as a way to extend services to non-Microsoft devices.Microsoft introduced System Center Mobile Device Manager&#160;at the conference. The software lets IT administrators manage and secure Windows Mobile phones. Unlike some other management products on the market, including Nokia&#39;s Intellisync, it is compatible only with phones running the Windows Mobile operating system.AT&amp;T, which is supporting Mobile Device Manager, said there is inertia among IT administrators. IT managers are worried about security and management issues, said Mike Woodward, vice business marketing for AT&amp;T. He thinks that the software as well as the services from a new company,&#160;Enterprise Mobile, will spur more enterprise use of mobile phones. Woodward could not offer specifics about how it will support Mobile Device Manager or how exactly it will work with Enterprise Mobile.For now, the new software and the services from Enterprise Mobile, which help enterprises deploy and manage mobile phones, are designed for large businesses. Mobile Device Manager, expected to come out next year, could support as many as 5,000 users. Enterprise Mobile doesn&#39;t expect to begin thinking about serving smaller businesses for another 12 to 18 months because it will be focused on making sure it knows what large enterprises need, said Steve Moore, president of Enterprise Mobile.
411584
Microsoft Corp  announced a management shake-up at its loss-making online division on Thursday, thrusting an outsider into a prominent position ahead of a proposed merger with Yahoo Inc .
548994
A technology well-known for speeding up multimedia content on its way through the Web is finding a nuanced new variation -- keeping up connections between corporate e-mail services and mobile devices such as Blackberries and Windows Mobile smartphones.