By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp launched its biggest
internal overhaul in five years to streamline the development of
products from Windows to tablets, hoping to catch nimbler rivals in
mobile and cloud computing.
Lack of coordination and infighting have hurt innovation within the
$74 billion revenue, 98,000-employee organization, which hopes to
accelerate the design of products that appeal to a new generation of
users more accustomed to smartphones and tablets than laptops or desktop
PCs.
Some analysts see Thursday's moves, which include centralizing
business-oriented functions such as marketing and research expenses
under separate units, as helping shore up Ballmer's control over the
sprawling corporation.
Removing major responsibilities for profit and revenue accounting
allows the main divisions to focus on innovative products and eliminates
the fiefdoms - Windows, Office for instance - that may have encouraged
infighting in recent years, analysts said.
"You don't do a major reorganization like this unless you have some
serious problems," BGC analyst Colin Gillis said. "It consolidates power
around the CEO."
Development of Windows will now be folded into one group headed by
Terry Myerson. He had previously focused only on Windows Phone and now
has responsibility for tailoring the flagship operating software for
devices ranging from the traditional PC to tablets and gaming consoles.
Julie Larson-Green, previously co-chief of the main Windows
division, will oversee a new division charged with all hardware devices,
from the Surface tablet to the Xbox.
Nearly all of the most senior managers have a new role after the reorganization, which did not include any major new hires.
The moves realign the company that helped revolutionize the personal
computing industry in the 1980s into what Chief Executive Steve Ballmer
calls a "devices and services" corporation - a nod to Apple Inc, which
has surpassed it in profit and market value in recent years.
It is also an implicit rejection of "software", the business which
Microsoft helped pioneer and drove the worldwide adoption of personal
computing, but in which it faces stiff competition from new rivals that
have popularized Internet-based services.
Executives told reporters and analysts on a conference call they did
not plan layoffs for now. But a certain amount of employee disruption
is to be expected as the company modifies its device marketing and
development strategies.
"It can be a major distraction. The details have to be ironed out,
there will be a lot of water-cooler talk and that's happening as the
company has some critical products coming out, like a unified phone,
Xbox," Gillis said.
Microsoft's shares have gained almost 30 percent this year, helped
by a rally that began in late April when the company released strong
revenue and earnings during what was one of the worst quarters for PC
sales on record.
They closed Thursday up 2.8 percent at $35.685.
Microsoft's stock hit a high of more than $59 at the height of the
first dotcom boom, but have mostly been in a range of $23-$32 for the
last decade. While rivals Apple and Google Inc have shot ahead of it in
market value, Microsoft is nearly unique in its staying power near the
top of the tech pyramid, and its Windows and Office businesses keep it a
profitable giant.
BE LIKE APPLE
Ballmer, who took over as CEO from co-founder Bill Gates in 2000,
said he wants the company to be more like Apple, which has roared past
Microsoft in sales and stock market value in the past few years by
smoothly melding its devices with online services such as iTunes.
He is trying to bring products to the market faster and make the
company more efficient, and wants to entice people to use Microsoft
products on a variety of devices besides personal computers.
Microsoft, which has been struggling to compete in a world of mobile
devices and Web-based services dominated by Apple and Google, launched
the Surface tablet in 2012. But the device has failed to make meaningful
headway against the iPad or Android devices made by Samsung Electronics
and others.
Its Windows 8 release last year also alienated PC users accustomed
to a long-established interface, prompting Microsoft to bring back,
among other things, the familiar "Start" button in a hasty update. All
operating systems now come under Terry Myerson, who had previously
headed up Windows Phone and the software giant's efforts to crack the
mobile market.
"We are rallying behind a single strategy as one company — not a
collection of divisional strategies," Ballmer said in a memo to
employees published on Microsoft's website on Thursday.
Microsoft's last significant reorganization came in July 2008 when
Ballmer split Microsoft's 'Platforms & Services Division' into three
separate units - Windows, Online Services and Server and Tools - in the
wake of the failure to buy Yahoo Inc.
Microsoft has been struggling with sharply declining personal
computer sales that cut into its software revenue as consumers and some
businesses increasingly favor smartphones and tablets. Worldwide PC
shipments declined 11.4 percent in the second quarter, the fifth
consecutive quarter of year-on-year decline, according to industry
research firm IDC.
Now, the four new engineering groups include Myerson's operating
systems unit, and applications and services engineering to be led by Qi
Lu, who had previously overseen the perennially money-losing online
services arm. He also will be responsible for Office software, one of
Microsoft's biggest cash cows.
Kurt DelBene, the former president of Microsoft Office, will retire.
His departure follows that of gaming chief Don Mattrick, now CEO of
Zynga, and Steven Sinofsky, formerly head of the Windows unit.
Satya Nadella, the company's leading authority on Internet
infrastructure, takes over all Web-based cloud services such as Azure,
which competes with Amazon.com Inc's AWS.
It was unclear whether the changes will mean that Microsoft will offer less financial data about certain products.
"It's a major concern if they use this opportunity to reduce the
transparency, so we're hoping that's not the case," Cross Research
analyst Richard Williams said.
"From a strategic perspective, it seems that they're just
streamlining the operating groups to bring all ... into one group, all
the applications all the cloud focus, all the devices," he added.
"There's a certain logic to that that makes sense to us."
(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Nicola Leske in New York
and Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Edwin Chan and Leslie
Gevirtz)
