Executives Promoted, Consumer Internet Business Realigned

Although Microsoft’s latest reorganization rewards more than a dozen longtime MS executives with promotions to vice presidencies or better, it is not of nearly the magnitude as the restructuring that took place in March. The goal of this reorganization was to pull together a new group of executives completely focused on consumers on the Internet. The new Consumer Group brings together executives previously scattered throughout the Microsoft organization under a single manager, group vice president Richard Belluzzo. Belluzzo, the former Silicon Graphics CEO, joined Microsoft in September to inject new vision into Microsoft’s foundering Internet businesses.

The Consumer Group

The stated mission of the Consumer Group is to combine all of Microsoft’s Internet-based services for consumers—Internet access, e-mail, online bill presentment and payment, search, chat, and others—into a single service that can be accessed at any time and on any device. Its unstated goal is to marshal Microsoft’s many