14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's upper management shift continues with a new top appointment, this time of the former Hewlett Packard Senior Vice President of Operations for Printing and Personal Systems as head of Windows Marketing.
Tony Prophet will thus replace Thom Gruhler, corporate vice president of Marketing for Windows, who in his turn will move to Microsoft's Applications & Services group.
Microsoft hasn't issued a press statement on this, but the company did confirm in a statement for ZDNet that Tony Prophet would take over the new role in early May.
“We can confirm Tony Prophet will be joining Microsoft as corporate vice president, Windows Marketing, reporting to Chris Capossela. Tony will focus on growing the Windows ecosystem and enabling our partners to be more successful building on Windows,” a company spokesperson said.
Prophet was appointed Senior VP of Operations of HP in March 2012, but he also worked as Senior Vice President of Operations of Carrier Corp., according to the aforementioned source.
Tami Reller, who was the previous Windows Marketing boss, decided to leave the company, so Microsoft is now rethinking the entire organigram with new executives coming either from outside the firm or from other departments.
However, Microsoft hasn't commented too much on Reller's departure, but the new CEO Satya Nadella confirmed in an email for company employees that the Windows Marketing boss decided to leave in the coming months. Of course, Nadella praised Reller's activity at Microsoft and said that she only wants to “take some time off.”
“She will then take time off and pursue other interests outside the company. Tami’s contributions to Microsoft are significant; she’s held multiple CFO jobs across the company, for Microsoft Dynamics, the Product and Services Division and Windows. She led marketing, finance and business strategy for Windows including Surface and partner device,” Nadella said in an internal memo.
“Over the past eight months, she’s led the Marketing Group, bringing many distinct teams together to form a cohesive organization. I have had the good fortune of working with Tami ever since she joined Microsoft and have valued her contributions and look forward to seeing what she does next.”
Microsoft has already lost several key executives in the last few months, partially because they have been sidelined as part of the One Microsoft reorganization plan that changes some roles within the company. At the same time, the new CEO Satya Nadella also appointed new people for top jobs, so expect more such news to emerge in the coming months.