Big changes ahead? You can bet the farmhouse on that! Terry Myerson, the Windows chief, has departed Microsoft. After having spent no less than 21 years at the company, no less.
Not only did Redmond confirm this news yesterday, but Terry himself published a goodbye letter on LinkedIn, talking about the time he spent at the company build the Windows operating system, while also saying that he is ready for a break.
The Executive Vice President of the Windows and Devices Group joined Microsoft in 1997, when the company purchased Interse Corporation — a firm that Myerson had founded.
Over the years, he held several roles at the company and led the engineering teams that built products like Microsoft Exchange and Windows Phone. He was promoted to head the WDG in July 2013, when Satya Nadella become CEO and initiated a companywide reorganization effort.
Speaking of which, a reorganization has also been announced now.
Nadella announced another major upper management overhaul, forming two new engineering teams in the process with new roles and responsibilities for several executives.
A new team called Experiences & Devices will be led by Rajesh Jha, who will oversee the goal of guaranteeing a unified product ethos across all end user experiences and devices. Familiar faces like Panos Panay and Joe Belfiore will continue to lead hardware and Windows experiences.
A second new team called Cloud + AI Platform will be led by good old Scott Guthrie.
Ultimately, the idea behind this management shuffle is to ensure that everyone works together as One Microsoft to help drive innovation and power a growth mindset culture.
Getting back to Myerson, he also touched upon how Windows Phone failed, while confirming that Windows 10 is now powering nearly 700 million users.
End of an area, nevertheless, for Windows.
An era.
