Stefan Mileschin

Microsoft's glorious Führer und Reichskanzler Steve "there is a kind of hush" Ballmer is expected to announce the mother of all restructurings today in a glorious five year plan.

Word on the street is that the restructuring will target Vole's Byzantine management structure and aims to bring to an end the battles between the Eunuchs which have made Vole the IBM of the early 21st century.

The re-organisation is apparently so large, it will take five years for Microsoft to pull it off. That is probably because the Redmond Volehill is so large that some managers will hide in small spaces and need to be tracked down by half-starved Alsatians with rubber bands around their testicles.

The changes will shift the duties and responsibilities of many top Microsoft executives and are intended to eliminate overlap.

Last week Bloomberg said that the move will mean the creation of a new cloud computing and business-focused products unit and would be headed by Satya Nadella, who currently oversees Microsoft's server business.

Julie Larson-Green, the current co-head of Microsoft's Windows operating system business, will lead the company's hardware efforts, including the Xbox video game console and the Surface tablets. Qi Lu, the head of Microsoft's money-losing online group, will also oversee Microsoft Office as well as other apps, Bloomberg said. Tony Bates will take control of Vole's business development efforts, including mergers and acquisitions and corporate strategy.

Microsoft declined to comment on the Bloomberg revalations but Ballmer is under a lot of pressure to do something about the company. The Tame Apple press claims that it is all to do with the fact that Microsoft failed to do well on mobile devices, but Redmond's woes go back a long way before that.

Nevertheless Ballmer has said that Microsoft now sees itself as a "devices and services" company, rather than a software maker. So it has finally woke up to reality.

This is the second time Ballmer has had a crack at a re-organisation. The last time was in 2008 when he split Microsoft's Platforms & Services Division into the Windows, Online Services and Server and Tools divisions.

Last week, Computerworld warned that if Ballmer does not sort out Microsoft with this restructuring then it really could be his last stand.

http://news.techeye.net/business/mic...restructurings