Former Disney executive joins Microsoft as CIO
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Microsoft has tapped a former executive at Walt Disney to fill its CIO position, a move that shows the company continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.Tony Scott, who most recently was CIO at Walt Disney, will take over that same role at Microsoft in February, reporting to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner. Scott, who also will be a corporate vice president at Microsoft, replaces Stuart Scott, who&#160;departed the company in November. The two are not related.Scott will manage Microsoft&#39;s 4,000-person IT organization, which is responsible for all of the technology systems supporting the company&#39;s worldwide sales, marketing, and services operations, as well as the enterprise systems and applications for all corporate processes.At Disney, where he was senior vice president in addition to CIO, Scott was the first CIO to manage the entire company&#39;s IT systems, according to Microsoft. Prior to Disney, Scott was CTO at General Motors and vice president of operations at Bristol-Meyers Squibb.There are a lot of new faces in the ranks of upper management at Microsoft, with a rash of them signing on to the company in the last six months. Just last week Microsoft revealed that company veteran Jeff Raikes, president of its Business Division, will&#160;leave the company in September. The company tapped an outside executive -- former Juniper Networks, Macromedia, and Adobe executive Stephen Elop -- to fill that role.Other new hires to the company since last July include: Dan Reed, Microsoft Research director of scalable and multicore computing in November; Robert Youngjohns, president of North American sales and marketing and corporate vice president in November; Brian McAndrews, senior vice president, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group in August; and Don Mattick, senior vice president, Interactive Entertainment Business in July.There is likely more new blood to come as Microsoft also confirmed last week several other executive departures: Bruce Jaffe, corporate vice president of corporate development; Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft&#39;s general manager of platform strategy; and&#160;Rob Short, corporate vice president of the Windows Core Technology group.Apart from CEO Steve Ballmer and Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft&#39;s entertainment and devices division, many of the company&#39;s other top executives have joined the company in the past three years. They include the man widely seen as Gates&#39; successor, Chief Architect Ray Ozzie, who joined Microsoft in 2005. Kevin Turner, Microsoft&#39;s chief operating officer, and Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft&#39;s Online Services Group, also joined the company that year.
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Jeff Raikes, the president of Microsoft&#39;s Business Division, plans to retire in September, the company said on Thursday.A Microsoft employee since 1981, Raikes oversees a broad stretch of the company&#39;s product line, including its Office, Dynamics, and Exchange software. Microsoft&#39;s Business Division generated about $16 billion in annual revenue last year, or slightly less than a third of the total.&quot;There is no overstating the incredible impact Jeff has had during his amazing career at Microsoft,&quot; CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement.Raikes will be replaced by Stephen Elop, formerly the COO at Juniper Networks. Elop also did a stint as president of worldwide field operations at Adobe Systems following its acquisition of Macromedia, where he served as president and CEO.Elop will start at Microsoft at the end of this month and take over Raikes&#39; portfolio gradually, starting with the company&#39;s Information Worker, Business Solutions, and Unified Communications businesses.With Raikes set to retire, Bob Muglia, senior vice president of Microsoft&#39;s Server and Tools business, will now report directly to Ballmer, the company said.
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SOFTWARE giant Microsoft has signed multi-million dollar software partnerships with two of Indiaâs leading outsourcing firms. The firmâs chief executive, Steve Ballmer, said it has also stepped up plans
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The Microsoft Corp.  executive  in charge of closing the gap on Web search leader Google Inc   is leaving the company, a source familiar with the  situation said on Wednesday.
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After a two-decade courtship of Ray  Ozzie, Microsoft Corp.  finally landed the soft-spoken  industry visionary last year and now he will succeed company  founder Bill Gates as its top technical guru.
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Microsoft said Friday it had named Craig Eisler to head the Macintosh Business Unit, replacing Roz Ho, who had spent seven years with the division and spearheaded much of the Redmond company's recommitment to the platform.
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Michael Eisner announced plans yesterday to step down as chief executive of Walt Disney in 2006, ending a tenure of more than 20 years in which he has left an indelible mark on one of the best-known brands in the world.
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The Microsoft Corp.  executive in charge of closing the gap on Web search leader Google Inc  is leaving the company, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.
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The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday it expects to announce a new chief executive by next June after a search that will include both inside and outside candidates to replace Michael Eisner, who is retiring in 2006.
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The move that shows Microsoft continuing to fill top executive positions from outside the company.
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Replaces one Scott with another Microsoft said yesterday that it has hired Disney man Tony Scott, who will replace sacked chief information officer Stuart Scott.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft Corp.'s Japan unit has picked a former Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. executive as its new chief operating officer (COO), the company said Monday. Yasuyuki Higuchi assumed his new position March 1. He was previously president of Japanese retailer Daiei Inc. and served as HP Japan's president. At Microsoft he will be in charge of the company's commercial and enterprise business. "I'm very excited," he said at a Tokyo news conference. "[Commercial] is the area I was heavily involved in at HP Japan ... so the area is one I am really familiar with." Higuchi was an employee of Compaq and came to HP when the two companies merged in 2002. Prior to Compaq he worked at Apple Inc.'s Japan unit between 1994 and 1997. As COO he will report to Darren Huston, president and CEO of Microsoft's Japan unit, Microsoft Co. Ltd. With Higuchi heading up the enterprise business, Huston will concentrate on the consumer sector, he said. "I hope to bring together our assets in a more consistent way," said Huston in an interview with IDG News Service. "We have a very strong portal on the Internet, MSN, we're launching a bunch of Live services, we've got some great products being launched in games for Windows [and] we've launched Vista in its premium version. So it's how do we bring those assets together and make more of an impact." Last week the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business newspaper reported that Higuchi is likely to take over from Huston as Microsoft's Japan president in about a year. Huston addressed the report on Monday and said that he would be here for at least the next financial year but didn't commit to being in Japan beyond that point. Â
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The head of Microsoft's Business Division is leaving the company, to be replaced by former Juniper Networks COO Stephen Elop in September.
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The head of MicrosoftÂs division that makes specialized software for small and midsize businesses is stepping down.
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(InfoWorld) - A Microsoft executive who helped develop the company'sÂ new Zune music playerÂ and other products is leaving the company, Microsoft said Wednesday. Bryan Lee, corporate vice president of Microsoft's entertainment business, "has decided to retire from Microsoft to pursue personal interests," the company said in a prepared statement. Lee reported to Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, who hired Lee in 2000. Bach said during his tenure Lee worked on development and deployment of the Xbox gaming system, the Windows XP Media Center operating system and the company's IP-television initiatives. "I want to extend my thanks to Bryan from the company and from me personally, for all of his contributions to Microsoft," Bach said. The Zune music player,Â introduced in November 2006, has been touted as Microsoft's challenge to the market-leading MP3 player, the iPod from Apple. Zune users can download music or videos from Microsoft's Zune.com Web site to the 30GB player. Unlike the iPod, the Zune is equipped with Wi-Fi. Lee will remain at Microsoft for a few more weeks to assist in the transition, the company said. J. Allard, corporate vice president of design and development, will take over full responsibility for the Zune. Joe Belfiore and Enrique Rodriguez, both corporate vice presidents who had reported to Lee, will now report to Bach.
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The former head of Microsoft Corp&#39;s Windows business has given his financial backing to SourceLabs Inc, a new open source support and services firm set up by former executives at BEA Systems Inc.
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Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Michael  Eisner will retire in September 2006, when his contract  expires, the company said on Friday.