Microsoft today announced that Steven Sinofsky, Windows Live President, who led the Windows group, has left the company effective immediately. He will be replaced by Julie Larson-Green who will be promoted to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering. Tami Reller, already chief financial officer and chief marketing officer, will also assume responsibility for the Windows business.
“I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company,” Ballmer said. “The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft. We’ve built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012 and ‘Halo 4,’ and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype and Xbox across all our products. To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings.”
No specific reason was given as to why Sinofsky, who had been with Microsoft since 1989, decided to leave less than a month after the launch of Windows 8. AllThingsD suggests that his departure was due to growing tension between Sinofsky and other top executives. Sinofsky was viewed as not being “the kind of team player that the company was looking for.”
It sounds a lot like the shakeup at Apple in late October.
Read more: Microsoft and AllThingsD