The expected MIcrosoft Server and Tools Business (STB) reorg was announced inside the company on May 2.
And as my sources indicated last week, Scott Guthrie, the current Corporate Vice President of the .Net platform at Microsoft, is now going to be running the Azure Application Platform team under Senior Vice President of the Business Platform Division, Ted Kummert.
The Windows Azure team remains under Bill Laing, the Corporate Vice President of the Server and Cloud division. Laing has been heading up the division since Amitabh Srivastava resigned from Microsoft last month.
Here’s a bit from today’s internal memo from Developer Division Senior Vice President Soma Somasegar on Guthrie’s new role and his team:
“Sharpening our Focus around Azure and Cloud Computing. Azure and the cloud are incredibly important initiatives that will play a huge role in the future success of STB and the company. Given the strategic importance of Cloud Computing for STB and Microsoft, we need a strong leader to help drive the development of our Cloud Application Platform and help us win developers for Azure. We’ve asked Scott Guthrie to take on this challenge and lead the Azure Application Platform team that will report to Ted Kummert in BPD… This team will combine the Web Platform & Tools team led by Bill Staples, the Application Server Group led by Abhay Parasnis and the Portal and Lightweight Role teams from the Windows Azure team. Scott’s transition is bittersweet for me. I personally will miss him very much, but I’m confident that Scott will bring tremendous value to our application platform. With Scott’s current organization finishing up important milestones, the timing is right for Scott to take on this role.
“With Scott’s transition, the Client Platform team led by Kevin Gallo will report directly to me and will continue its focus on the awesome work that the team is doing for the different Microsoft platforms. The .NET Core Platform team led by Ian Carmichael will report to Jason Zander which will bring the managed languages and runtime work closer together. Patrick Dussud will report to Ian Carmichael and will continue being the technical leader for .NET.”
To date, Kummert’s Business Platform Division was in charge of SQL Server, SQL Azure, BizTalk Server, Windows Server AppFabric and Windows Azure platform AppFabric, Windows Communication Foundation, and Windows Workflow Foundation. These products are core to Microsoft’s private-cloud strategy and set of deliverables.
Another related move, announced last month, was the naming of Tom Casey to a new post as Corporate Vice President of Business Platform Cloud Services in the Business Platform Division. Casey previously was in charge of Microsoft’s business intelligence strategy and development.
In his new role, “Casey has overall business, engineering and operational responsibilities for SQL Azure, Microsoft’s pioneering database-as-a-service offering as part of its comprehensive Azure Services platform. He also owns responsibility for driving BPD’s business and R&D strategy for key international markets, particularly China,” according to his newly updated bio page on Microsoft’s Web site.
The Windows Azure and SQL Azure teams have been tightening their ties in recent months, according to various Microsoft insiders and observers.
As I blogged last week, Microsoft is seeking ways to boost sales of its Azure platform. One way the company is hoping to do this is by tightening up its developer story around Azure.
Today’s moves are part of changes instituted by the new President of STB Satya Nadella.
I asked Microsoft officials what the changes mean for the future of Silverlight and was told by a spokesperson that it’s “status quo” with Silverlight, in spite of today’s org changes. Microsoft officials have been signaling since last fall that the company’s Silverlight strategy has shifted, and its emphasis, going forward, will be on Silverlight as a development tool, and HTML5 as Microsoft’s cross-platform app/content play.
