Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Steve Ballmer is planning a reorganization aimed at reducing the number of business units and putting more focus on devices and services, according to people familiar with the matter.
The changes would give greater responsibility to executives including Satya Nadella, head of the server business, Don Mattrick, who runs Xbox, Qi Lu (陸奇), chief of the online group, and Tony Bates, president of Skype, according to two people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
Andy Lees, who has overseen corporate development and strategy since November last year, will probably leave the company in the coming months, the people said.
Photo: AFP
Ballmer, who is struggling to gain share in mobile phones and tablets, announced a shift in strategy last year for the world’s largest software maker to focus on computing devices and Internet-based services.
Any staffing changes will also provide clues as to the executives who may eventually succeed Ballmer.
Plans for the executive shakeup, which Ballmer, 57, has been discussing with the board, are not final and may still change, the people said.
The All Things D blog reported some details of the restructuring yesterday.
The changes are aimed at cutting the number of disparate units and fostering cooperation between products so that Microsoft can better compete against Apple Inc and Google Inc, a source said.
Microsoft spokesman Peter Wootton declined to comment on restructuring or staffing changes.
One idea under consideration by Ballmer would create four divisions: an enterprise business led by Nadella; a hardware unit overseen by Mattrick; an applications and services division under Lu; and an operating-systems group jointly led by Terry Myerson, Windows phone chief, and Julie Larson-Green, head of Windows engineering, a source said.
Bates would also be given a significant role, the person said.
In April, activist investor ValueAct Holdings LP disclosed a stake of about a US$1.9 billion in Microsoft and said the company should become a leader in Web-based cloud computing, putting more pressure on Ballmer to focus on that area.
Microsoft currently has eight divisions or units, and six presidents. The Windows business has been run by two vice presidents, Larson-Green and Tami Reller, since Steven Sinofsky was pushed out in November last year. The Office unit is run by Kurt DelBene.
The reorganization has been under discussion even before Sinofsky’s ouster, the sources said.
Ballmer stressed at the time the need for Microsoft’s groups to better cooperate and for executives to make that happen.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts