Bloomberg: Ballmer may name Windows boss as new head of hardware / Xbox

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http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/slt.aspx

Posted this in the Mattrick thread.


I find it odd they won't have a dedicated exec for "entertainment" for things like Xbox, music and film services - I imagine Mattrick had some reign of that before.



Edit: holy shit, just read Julie's bio - sounds like she could have been responsible for the piece of shit that is the Office ribbon?
Microsoft's CMO and CFO for windows are the same person? that is very very odd.
 
Hmm this wouldn't be bad. The flaws about Surface are goals Microsoft set with the software. The hardware is very slick and the only problem it had was how pricy the components ended up being relative to the tablet market.



Sure the specs are set in stone but that doesn't mean you can't fiddle with new engineering/manufacturing techniques to make the components cheaper over time.

Did she have much to do with the Surface hardware though? Sounds like she's been more on user interfaces from her bio, rather than the hardware side of things.
 
This woman has a son it's a lock he's going to be all in his mothers ear. Could you imagine being the kid who's mom is in charge of the XBOX brand?
 
SMH, Gaf discussing her looks. Wouldn't do that if we were discussing a male person.



To be fair, the Office ribbon is pretty awesome (imo)

Yesterday I have seen male Xbox guys described as "looking constantly constipated", "robotic", "fake", "empty suit", I think there were some "slimy" posts or something along those lines as well. Cerny was said to be looking like a serial killer with those eyebags.

Try again.

On topic: No idea how this will work out and how much was planned due to the restructuring, anyway. Looks like Mattrick departed without much warning, though, how nice of him.
 
This woman has a son it's a lock he's going to be all in his mothers ear. Could you imagine being the kid who's mom is in charge of the XBOX brand?

as many have stated, I'm not sure she is in charge of the xbox brand. she will head a division which has the xbox brand coming under her but someone who hasn't been announced, may take leadership of xbox and report to her as line manager.
 
If she will head-up hardware engineering, what could her role possibly entail that would have any dramatic effect on the X1 before launch? Hardware changes? That would just further delay the launch date, right?
 
If she will head-up hardware engineering, what could her role possibly entail that would have any dramatic effect on the X1 before launch? Hardware changes? That would just further delay the launch date, right?

I assume she will let new Xbox division head handle it(won't ask too many question when the new guy/girl reporting etc) unless something huge happened
 
Microsoft seems to be experiencing weird thrashing pre-death motions at the moment. I mean we all knew Ballmer had no idea what he was doing, but he's making a real pigfuck mess of things now.
 
as many have stated, I'm not sure she is in charge of the xbox brand. she will head a division which has the xbox brand coming under her but someone who hasn't been announced, may take leadership of xbox and report to her as line manager.

So she'll be in charge of the Xbox brand?

I'm quite sure she'll have a MS HW strategy and will push initiatives that all her line managers will have to work into their respective divisions. She'll be the one calling the shots and whomever is in charge of the Xbox platform will not have much autonomy as they will have to still lead the platform in the direction set by this woman.

It's the same thing in most organisations I would have thought.
 
God I just hope the new Xbox head is a gamer at heart and someone who understands how entertainment actually works outside of games.
 
So she'll be in charge of the Xbox brand?

I'm quite sure she'll have a MS HW strategy and will push initiatives that all her line managers will have to work into their respective divisions. She'll be the one calling the shots and whomever is in charge of the Xbox platform will not have much autonomy as they will have to still lead the platform in the direction set by this woman.

It's the same thing in most organisations I would have thought.

no. she will be the line manager of the person in charge of the xbox brand. again, this is all speculation but those are two different things. this person will report to her and of course she will have a say in what goes on, however she will most likely have to approve policies but they won't initially be set out by her.

a lot of this is hearsay and conjecture but that is how it is shaping out to be. I've been involved in many restructuring in my career and it looks to be panning out this way.
 
In theory, Xbox is a great spearhead brand to take over the living room.

In theory, if MS play it right they could make that move before Apple do.

Unfortunately, in reality it is a brand based on gaming and they're diluting that and going full force entertainment and I don't think those consumers that value the brand line up well with that.

but if MS are panicking they may simply push push push for that space in an attempt to cover off that space and ignore the obvious warning signs.
 
Did she have much to do with the Surface hardware though? Sounds like she's been more on user interfaces from her bio, rather than the hardware side of things.

Hmm I just read that bio. It's a bit odd that she would be in charge of hardware divisions in general.
 
no. she will be the line manager of the person in charge of the xbox brand. again, this is all speculation but those are two different things. this person will report to her and of course she will have a say in what goes on, however she will most likely have to approve policies but they won't initially be set out by her.

a lot of this is hearsay and conjecture but that is how it is shaping out to be. I've been involved in many restructuring in my career and it looks to be panning out this way.

To be fair, MS was in dire need of restructuring if the company is going to achieve it's goals of a unified ecosystem and high quality hardware.
 
If its not someone like Greenberg, Spencer, Harrison or even former guys like Peter Moore or John Shappert I'd be very worried. Well, especially if it ends up being someone from a non-gaming background.
 
I don't think promoting from within the company is a particularly great idea. I feel like they should get some new blood in; what's Scott Forstall up to these days?
 
Head of hardware engineering =/= "head of hardware/Xbox". What a silly thread title.

They mean head of hardware, which is the division previously rumoured to over-arch Xbox and other devices. MCV interprets it the same way.

If you think a person in her position is being shuffled off into an engineering position under others who will head up strategy overall - or that Mattrick was going to be just handling 'Xbox hardware engineering' in this role, if he had taken it - well...

...and hasn't the internet spent the past five years complaining that Mattrick isn't a videogame guy?

Yeah, but he was a games guy, just not one that a lot of people were enamoured with.

I'm actually starting to wonder if this re-org is part of the reason why he left, since it appears to take Xbox off the top table, and he'd be overseeing that change if he stayed.
 
Now we understand why so much TV TV TV TV TV.

On the brightside our girlfriends will like Xbox One much more than us.
 
The fact that Ballmer and now Larson-Green are overseeing Xbox tells me Microsoft is going to put the kabosh on Xbox.

I could be wrong, but haven't Xbox consoles lost money or fail to recoup until recently? Coupled with the PR disaster for Xbox One, I don't see why Microsoft would want to spend additional money to bring someone on board to take Don Mattrick's role....that new person wouldn't have any effect on the plans already made and wouldn't change any policies any further.
 
Now we understand why so much TV TV TV TV TV.

On the brightside our girlfriends will like Xbox One much more than us.

Yeah there were so much TV at E3 conference...

The fact that Ballmer and now Larson-Green are overseeing Xbox tells me Microsoft is going to put the kabosh on Xbox.

I could be wrong, but haven't Xbox consoles lost money or fail to recoup until recently? Coupled with the PR disaster for Xbox One, I don't see why Microsoft would want to spend additional money to bring someone on board to take Don Mattrick's role....that new person wouldn't have any effect on the plans already made and wouldn't change any policies any further.
Xbox division is profitable now,if MS wanna trash a division,it will be online division,because online division never profit at any Q since opened,not even once
 
It says Terry would be given the "engineering" responsibility which I don't think means he is head of the division, just head of an internal group that engineers Windows. Julie would still be head of the Windows division otherwise it is a huge, huge demotion for her and a massive promotion for Terry despite WP8 completely and utterly failing in the market.

The original rumours about the reorganisation pointed to the merging of windows and windows phone into one division, though:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/23/4457082/microsoft-reorg-expected-by-july-1st-rumor

In the same way they talk about 'hardware engineering', I don't think they literally mean that Terry would head an engineering team. I mean, he's also a VP at the top of the company. That would be a big demotion for him too! That original report tapped him and Julie to lead the new single Windows division jointly, but Bloomberg suggests it'll be him alone.
 
You guys are blowing this out of proportion. It will be a good thing to try to introduce a corporate culture where all the products have synergy between them. There will still be a head of Xbox, who will report to the head of hardware. Wasn't Xbox under a "devices" group before?

It's kind of like Apple. They have Jony Ive as head of all hardware/user interface designing (Mac, iDevice, Apple TV), Craig Federighi in charge of OS engineering (OS X and iOS), Dan Riccio in charge of all hardware engineering (Mac, iDevice, Apple TV) and Eddy Cue who is in charge of all services under Apple.

All Apple products have the same overall look and feel as they're all developed by the same teams. In that sense, we'd have someone responsible for overseeing all hardware efforts, to bring the devices together. It's to leverage Microsoft to be its best.

Microsoft and Sony are huge corporations with a huge portfolio of products, and bringing synergy between them is a good thing. In fact Kaz said he wants to bring synergy between other Sony divisions and PlayStation, and having that Sony Pictures guy on stage at E3 is only the beginning.
 
The original rumours about the reorganisation pointed to the merging of windows and windows phone into one division, though:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/23/4457082/microsoft-reorg-expected-by-july-1st-rumor

In the same way they talk about 'hardware engineering', I don't think they literally mean that Terry would head an engineering team. I mean, he's also a VP at the top of the company. That would be a big demotion for him too! That original report tapped him and Julie to lead the new single Windows division jointly, but Bloomberg suggests it'll be him alone.

I think the difference is that his demotion would be a deserved one, WP is basically dead on the market. W8 might not be reaching the heights of W7, but it's not anything like the failure that WP is right now. If Terry is being promoted to head of Windows over Julie, it is basically a microcosm of everything that is wrong at MS right now.
 
Holy crap that's my buddy's mother in law o.o (btw this is the one who got mad at him during thanksgiving one year for saying "google it" instead of "bing it")
 
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