Today, AllThingsD has published an internal memo by Ballmer that explains the plan before the official announcement.
The Vision
The memo starts by describing the three screens and a cloud vision, and reiterates that it should be the plan for Microsoft, saying "our products and services should operate as one experience across every device." This is what we've long expected from Windows because of the much marketed "shared core" between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, and the unified UI, but it looks like we're really going to see the convergence from here on.
The memo outlines the following as the "key guiding principles" behind the new organization plan:
- A business model based on partner and first-party devices with both consumer and enterprise services
- Optimization for activities people value most
- A family of devices powered by a service-enabled shell
- Design for enterprise extensibility and enterprise needs
The reorganization
The plan is to organize the company by function, rather than by product. The functions being: Engineering (including supply chain and datacenters), Marketing, Business Development and Evangelism, Advanced Strategy and Research, Finance, HR, Legal, and COO (including field, support, commercial operations and IT). For our purposes, we're going to focus solely on the Engineering because that is really the entire product line.Engineering will be split into four divisions: OS, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. Current teams will continue to focus on what is in the pipeline right now, but Ballmer expects the full transition to the new organization by the end of the year.
At that time, Terry Myerson, currently the corporate vice president of the Windows Phone Division, will head up the Operating Systems Engineering Group, which will cover work on all Microsoft platforms from Windows Phone to Windows and Xbox.
Julie Larson-Green, who has been the head of the Windows division, will take over the Devices and Studios Engineering Group, which will deal with all hardware and supply chain issues (this is the Devices part) as well as the entertainment services (Studios) like Xbox Live, Xbox Music, etc.
Qi Lu, who has been president of Microsoft's Online Services Division, will become head of the Applications and Services Engineering Group, which will focus on Microsoft's software library in "productivity, communication, search and other information categories." This seems to mean the group will include Office, Bing, Skype, etc.
And, Satya Nadella, who has been president of Microsoft Corporation's Server and Tools Business, will take over the Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group, which will focus on "back-end technologies like datacenter, database and our specific technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and development tools."
These are just some of the major changes in the reorganization of the company. There will also be some high profile employees moving around in and leaving the company. Kurt DelBene, now the former president of the Microsoft Office Division, will be leaving the company. Craig Mundie will "devote 100% of his time" to working on a special project directly with Ballmer. Rick Rashid will move away from his role as head of Microsoft Research to work in the OS group.
End Goal
Ultimately, Ballmer doesn't see the "what" of Microsoft's plan changing, merely the "how" of actually getting it done. Ballmer expects that this reorganization will help the company to be more nimble, more collaborative, while making communication, and decision-making easier processes. The end goal is still to build a convergent experience for users where they will get the same experience from a Windows Phone device as they do a Windows desktop, and all apps from Bing to Skype have a cohesive vision behind them as well. Microsoft also seems to be focusing more on hardware, so we should definitely expect more than just Xbox and Surface tablets from the company in the future, as Ballmer is focused on offering a "Family of Devices", which sounds quite a bit like there has been some Nokia influence there.
Ballmer is clearly keen on getting the entire Microsoft team behind him, saying, "One strategy, united together, with great communication, decisiveness and positive energy is the only way to fly." Microsoft has a clear vision of where it wants to go, and now it has a new process to get there. We may not see the fruits of this new corporate structure until next year at the earliest, but it should be interesting to watch.
You can read the full memo from Ballmer below
source - AllThingsD