Newsletter Archives

• Big changes at the top for Microsoft

  Posted on July 8, 2017 at 20:35 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Brad Sams just reported on petri.com about two senior Microsoft departures. We’ve all been expecting details about thousands of folks in the salesforce getting the boot. But these two caught me by surprise.

  Nat Levy at GeekWire reports that Chief Info Officer Jim Dubois – who’s been on sabbatical – is retiring. Folks inside Microsoft think of the CIO as the person who keeps the internal business systems running. I think of Dubois as the chief consumer of dog food — the person who gets to try out all of the new features before the beta world sees them.

  Surprisingly, to me, Kurt DelBene will take on Dubois’s duties, using the newly coined title “Chief Digital Officer.” (I suppose that’s a step up from Chief Analog Officer.) I’ve written about DelBene before. He’s a long-time friend and confidant of Satya Nadella, with serious cloud experience.

  Brad also announced that William Kennedy is leaving. He’s the Corporate VP of Windows development, but it isn’t clear to me exactly what he does at MS.

  Oddly, this is the second time in two years that Kennedy’s departure has been announced. Back in August 2015, Ina Fried on Re/code said, as Nadella’s first round of major changes took effect:

  Perhaps the oddest turn was a change that was announced but ended up not happening. According to a source, Microsoft announced to the Windows team that it was replacing William Kennedy, the corporate VP of Windows development. It even announced Holecek as his replacement, only to say a short time later that Kennedy would be staying in place after all.

  According to this twitter conversation between Brad, Dona Sarkar, and Mary Branscombe, Kennedy is currently in charge of the team that makes Windows Photos, Paint 3D, and other Microsoft apps built for Windows. There are also several references online to Kennedy being “Corporate VP of the Windows Experience development team.”

  I can’t find any more information about his departure – where he’s going, who (if anyone) will replace him. If you’re concerned about the future of Paint 3D, there may be reason to fret. Will keep you updated.

  Microsoft News DelBene, Dubois, William Kennedy