back to article Departing Ballmer shakes up Microsoft's top engineering boffins

Steve Ballmer has shuffled some Microsoft top boffins around, using his closing days as CEO to cement his massive summer re-org. Harry Shum, Bing engineering chief and ex Microsoft Research managing director for Asia, has been named executive vice president of technology and research. Shum replaces Eric Rudder who has been …

COMMENTS

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  1. a well wisher

    If he hasn't got it right so far ...

    smacks of fiddling with the deckchairs on the Titanic whilst the violinist was playing ....

    1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Not quite "he hasn't got it right so far" ...

      How many years has it been since Longhorn and ME?

      Why this company is still in business smacks of fiddling with the deckchairs on the Titanic whilst the crowd were shushing him because the orchestra was playing. Well...

      the word fiddling figures in the treatment.

  2. Khaptain Silver badge

    Translation

    <quote>He is uniquely positioned to drive exceptional forward-thinking research that pushes the frontiers of computer science, while also driving impactful technology transfer through deep connections with our business teams.”</quote>

    Translated from ShitSpeak to normal English:

    He is hoping and praying that he will stumble upon something usefull, that might just sell, if the sales team ever speak to him again

  3. Lars Silver badge

    The Palin moment

    The "straw that broke my camel’s back" was when the biggest political party decided to choose Sarah Palin as the next possible president of the united states (small letters intentionally) and expecting more than half the us voters to go for it. Oh hell. And now reading this article with names like Harry Shum, Shim, Qi Lu, I feel everything is not lost yet. An optimist finding it hard to remain so.

  4. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    "His recent involvement with Bing suggests Microsoft wants a techie tuned to the integration of web search and online services with Windows devices."

    Wanting this is the root cause of most of Microsoft's miss-steps in the last decade. We'll know if the company has a future fairly soon. If the incoming boss doesn't pretty much reverse the policy then they are doomed.

    That's not because they couldn't be a player in that market. It's because all their attempts so far seem to have involved walking away from (alienating) the desktop market. That's just daft. There's an ad going round for Microsoft's CRM software that says it costs six times as much to get a new customer as to retain an old one. Why are they walking away from the biggest monopoly in the industry to try to steal customers from their two richest competitors?

    1. asdf

      >Why are they walking away from the biggest monopoly in the industry to try to steal customers from their two richest competitors?

      Court order? They are a convicted monopolist that bought their way out of the trouble with political donations once but that doesn't guarantee they can do it again if they abuse their monopoly (ie force their products, not allow their competitors products on the desktop for example).

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Creating more executive bureaucracy in a company already so top heavy it wobbles in a high wind?

    Good luck with that.

  7. Roger Greenwood

    impactful

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=impactful

    word of the day: September 23, 2009

    A non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is.

    That's what I thought.

  8. Albert Hall

    What's in a name?

    So now they can't be called Rudderless any more, am I right?

  9. asdf

    just go away

    I can't believe the board is allowing Stevie B to be making any decisions at this point.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: just go away

      He should be on garden leave.

    2. silent_count

      Re: just go away

      Yes asdf, I was thinking the same. The people appointed to the positions will have just enough time to sit their backsides into their respective chairs before the next CEO comes along and "dynamically reinvigorates emergent synergies" by, erm, shuffling around the management positions .

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just go Ballmer, sod off you buffon.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ;-)

    "head of Trustworthy Computing"

    Gets me every time.

    Stop, you're killing me.

    Wonder if he shares an office with the environmentally sustainable engineering crew.

  12. Lapun Mankimasta

    "advanced strategy"?

    What's wrong with calling a spade a spade and saying "retarded strategy"?

    PanAm is the Microsoft of today, the Microsoft for these times.

    And horror of horrors, I misread his name as "Ruddigore". Where are you when we need you most, Gilbert and Sullivan?!?

  13. promytius

    executive vice president advanced strategy=read 'fired'

    Advanced strategy - yeah, like let's do in 5 clicks what used to take 1.

    Using "advanced strategy" and MS in the same article is an oxymoron, emphasis on the 'moron.'

    I'm designing a special room in Hell for all MS employees, especially the Windows 8 designers - I'm sure they'll find it less than "charming."

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