Rajesh Jha will lead the newly-formed Office Product Group

Sep 30, 2016 07:30 GMT  ·  By

As reported yesterday, Qi Lu, who was in charge of the Microsoft Office division, has decided to leave the company due to health issues, so Redmond is conducting more internal reorganizations in order to reshape its internal structure.

Earlier today, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella announced the forming of a new division called AI and Research Group that would combine several teams, including Microsoft Research, as well as some other top engineers from the Applications and Services Group that Qi Lu himself was leading.

Following his departure, though, the remainder of the team will be renamed to Office Product Group, according to GeekWire, and will be led by Rajesh Jha. Gurdeep Singh Pall, who was part of the Skype team, will have a new role, as Jha will take over his responsibilities.

Lu will return as a technical adviser

According to Satya Nadella, Qi Lu will return to Microsoft when he recovers from his medical problems, but won’t take over the same role and will serve as a personal advisor to Bill Gates and him.

“We live in a time when digital technology is impacting, and indeed transforming, every human endeavor and each of our customers,” CEO Satya Nadella explained.

“Our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more continues to guide all we do. It is through our mission and activating a growth mindset culture that will enable us to accelerate digital transformation both within our own company and in partnership with our customers.”

The newly-formed Microsoft AI and Research Group is the fourth engineering division at Microsoft, after Office, Windows, and cloud.

Microsoft says that it’s fully committed to AI, and Harry Shum, the newly-appointed chief of this unit, explained that by grouping together the engineers who previously made possible the company’s progress in research, the firm should be able to continue innovations in this field with a more seamless collaboration as part of a single division.