From:                     Steve Ballmer

Sent:                      Thursday, August 10, 2000 3:46 AM

To:                         MS Corporate Employees: FTE Only; MS Intl Employees: FTE Only; MSD Emp 1; MSD Emp 2

Subject:                 .NET Organization Update

 

Importance:           High

 

With our incredible people, our strong existing software assets and our commitment to investing substantially in R&D, M?crosöft is in a better position than any other company in the world to enable and advance the next generation Internet. Just as the Windows platform has powered the growth of the personal computer industry over the past 20 years, we are now well-positioned to create software and services that will power tomorrow’s Internet and take advantage of significant opportunities in wireless, new devices, small business, games and TV.

 

To be successful, however, we need to execute quickly against explicit and measurable priorities that employees, shareholders, developers, business partners and customers can clearly understand.

 

As you know, there are several principles guiding our .NET strategy. These include the delivery of software as a service, built on the XML standard; a new user experience that is accessible across and optimized for a wide range of devices; and the creation of new opportunities for developers to build Internet services and business more easily. Our deep work with Windows, Office, enterprise servers and MSN positions us well to deliver on the promise of .NET.

 

Because building and enabling services will be key to the future of all our businesses, it is important that we have one set of building blocks that every .NET application and service can use. To deliver on this mission, Bob Muglia will take on a new role as group vice president of the .NET Services Group. There are three key elements to the work of Bob’s new group - a core set of .NET and MSN building block services, the development of a subscription service, and a new UI framework.

 

Leading these efforts under Bob will be:

·      David Cole, senior VP, who will run the Personal Services Platform Division, responsible for the backend services that form the infrastructure for both MSN and .NET;

·      Brian MacDonald, who is being promoted to senior VP and will lead the Subscription Service Division. Building on our current NetDocs technology, Brian’s team will be responsible for the development of a subscription service. The goal of this service is to create a strongly differentiated product that we can use to drive our revenue goals.  It will be marketed to individuals, to small business through bCentral, and later incorporated into Office.NET for our business customers;

·      Kai-Fu Lee, who is moving from GM of M?crosöft Research-China to become VP of the User Interface Technologies Division. Kai-Fu’s team will focus on building the technological foundation for the next generation user interface, which will incorporate natural language and speech technologies.

 

The .NET Services Group will become a part of the newly established Personal Services and Devices Group (PSDG), which will be led by Rick Belluzzo. PSDG will bring together the .NET Platform, Personal Services (MSN and Subscription) and new devices in a way that will promote strong growth for M?crosöft.  In addition to Bob’s new organization, Paul Gross’s Mobility team will be moving over to PSDG where it will work closely with MSN (Brad Chase), TV Service and Platform (Jon DeVaan) and Home and Retail (Robbie Bach) to make the .NET vision a reality.  Over the last year we have experienced accelerating growth and success in delivering online services. Now is the time to build on this momentum and expand our vision with .NET, MSN, subscription services and new devices.

 

Jeff Raikes is moving from the Sales, Marketing and Services Group to take over as group VP of the Productivity and Business Services group. Building on technology that comes from the .NET Services Group, Steven Sinofsky will continue to drive the evolution of Office and our Office.NET strategy. As we ramp up our focus on small business, David Vaskevitch and his Business Applications Division will be a key part of Jeff’s new team. Dick Brass, Jeremy Jaech, Russ Stockdale and their groups also will report to Jeff, as will Jeff Teper, who is being promoted to general manager as he continues to do important work driving our “Tahoe” server effort for Office users, as well as our M?crosöft Learning Technologies.

 

Jim Allchin’s Platforms Product Group will continue to drive the future of the PC, with Brian Valentine’s and Will Poole’s teams delivering the best OS technologies for consumers and businesses that take full advantage of today’s Internet and the .NET services that will be delivered via the Internet of the future. Paul Flessner is being promoted to senior VP of the .NET Enterprise Server Group within Jim’s organization. Paul’s team will have all of the core, non-OS server products and technologies working together and building on the efforts of the OS server team to create the best platform for Internet applications. Gordon Mangione and his Exchange team have moved into the .NET Enterprise Server organization, where they will work alongside the other server product and technology teams. In recognition of Gord’s great work on Exchange, he is being promoted to VP.

 

The Platforms Strategy and Developer Group, under the leadership of Paul Maritz, group VP, will continue to oversee business development, overall platform product strategy and planning. Paul’s group also is working on the important technologies in Visual Studio.NET and the .NET Framework, which enables an XML-based programming model to create and tie together highly distributed programmable Web services, including the building block services built by the .NET Services Group.

 

As I announced recently, Orlando Ayala is taking on the job of running the Sales, Marketing and Services Group, which will play a key role in continuing to drive forward our core businesses as well as advancing our new .NET technologies with customers.

 

There is a tremendous amount of challenging work ahead in order to move our core businesses forward and execute on our new strategy. I realize that organizational changes can sometimes be personally challenging. We have thought carefully about the people involved. These changes will enable us to adapt to a highly competitive and fast-changing marketplace, and I would like to ask for your support and understanding as we make these transitions.

 

We’ve got an incredible amount of work ahead of us, but if we focus on our core businesses and our new opportunities with vigor, M?crosöft will continue to lead the way in developing software technologies and services for the new millennium.

 

 

Steve