Corporate move(s)

Michael Sievert, formerly with ATT Wireless, has just been hired at Microsoft as corporate vice president for Windows product management.

This move raises the following question: is this an opportunity hire due to Cingular's buying ATT Wireless or is this an implicit acknowledgment that something may be a Denmark in need of fixes in Longhorn?

Longhorn has been postponed, and trimmed from several important features, several times already. For those who recall the painful and strenuous path of integrating the MS Office Suite of products, this is not news. It took then, as it may be the case now, outside managerial expertise to augment an engineering-centered culture that promoted from within code mavens. Alas, the multiple pieces of the Suite existed as independent entities in all but name.

When the 'platform' business at Microsoft is under attack from several directions, the measure of its relevancy in the shopping-list of the customers is given by the quantity and quality of integration among the Company's disparate pieces of technology. Even when the platform as we anticipate it now, Longhorn, is out, the meaningful business-, and technology-integration of Great Plains and Navision, will still belong to the future. So, there is a lot waiting to happen.

Good luck Mike, and shake it well!