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Microsoft axes SVP title, says no muckety-muck shakeup

September 16, 2011 at 3:20 pm by 21 Comments

Microsoft has traditionally separated its squadrons of executives into “corporate vice presidents” and “senior vice presidents” — the latter title naturally being reserved for the higher-ranking and more-experienced of the company’s bigwigs.

But no more, the company says. The title of “senior vice president” is going away at Microsoft, as first reported this afternoon by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. To be clear, the executives are staying, and keeping their internal status, but the days of the SVP title are ending.

Why? Here’s the company’s official statement from the company …

Microsoft has eliminated the title of Senior Vice President. This does not change the level or compensation of any of our executives, it’s just part of an ongoing effort to make our title structure as streamlined and consistent as possible. Streamlining our title system will also make it easier for our senior leaders to move into new roles across the company, as we tackle new opportunities.

Microsoft SVPs affected by the change include S. “Soma” Somasegar, now corporate vice president of the Developer Division; general counsel Brad Smith, now executive vice president for legal and corporate affairs; and Rick Rashid, chief research officer.

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  • Guest

    I support this and I stand by Microsoft. There is no need to have so many titles at a place as large as Microsoft. Kudos to Steve for continuing to flatten Microsoft’s hierarchical structure!

    • Guest

      Huh? Steve is the primary architect of the bloated bureaucratic mess that MS has become.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XVUSK4SAEWYDKS74XFTKQPLQXI Gothbend

    One of the factors that ruined MS as a great place to work was the hugely bloated number of middle managers who did little but get in the real workers’ way, claim credit for the good stuff and blame the real workers for any problems.

    • Peter Bowditch

      Sounds like most places I’ve worked. Until I started working for myself, of course, where I an CEO (Chief Everything Officer).

    • Peter Bowditch

      Sounds like most places I’ve worked. Until I started working for myself, of course, where I an CEO (Chief Everything Officer).

    • Peter Bowditch

      Sounds like most places I’ve worked. Until I started working for myself, of course, where I an CEO (Chief Everything Officer).

  • Guest

    Typical. Instead of dealing with the chronic executive bloat that repeatedly sees them take years to accomplish what several competitors routinely do in months, they just rearrange the titles.

    Compare the senior leadership team of Apple, a company that is now larger by revenue, profit, and market cap:

    http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/

    to MS’s:

    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/a-d.aspx

    And that list scrolls on for *five* more pages. It’s absurd.

    • Guest

      Microsoft’s list of products spans literally hundreds of pages and markets small and large. Of course they need more leadership to manage all those products.

      Apple sells iPhone, Macbook, iMac, and a few little shareware programs to consumers and not to large businesses. It’s comparably easy to run that kind of an operation with fewer executives.

      • Bob

        MS sells more products, but when you get down to it they make most of their money from Windows, Office, and the Server products. Indeed Ballmer says they have 7 businesses, which isn’t that different from Apple, who has iPod, Mac, iPad, and iPhone, not to mention the massive iTunes/App Store operation, iTV, mobile search, and misc other things. And of course most of MS’s sales are through partners vs direct like Apple, so there’s an argument they should be more leveraged, not less. So the disparity in senior ranks noted above is pretty striking. I’m not saying MS should have just 10, but 100+ seems kind of insane, no?

        • Guest

          Bob, let’s not compare Apples with oranges. Microsoft and many other highly successful companies, like Google, empower a variety of men with vision. Apple entrusts the vision duty to one man, and so far it’s worked pretty well.

          I just hope that one man never gets sick or dies, Bob.

          • Bob

            The OP’s comparison is apples to oranges if you want to be strict about it. Nevertheless, it raises some important points.

            And it’s a disservice to Apple’s management suggesting that Jobs is the only visionary. Certainly he has the most influence and much more than Ballmer at MS (who I’m not sure has any), but Ive plays a very important role in that as well. And Cook’s vision in sourcing and manufacturing has been very innovative and is a critical factor is allowing them to achieve their product vision. Anyway, most of the people in MS’s list are operational, not visionary. So it’s a moot point.

            That list tends to confirm that MS is very top heavy. And it’s hard to see how pruning it wouldn’t allow them to improve their overall agility issues.

          • Bob

            is > isn’t.

      • Bob

        MS sells more products, but when you get down to it they make most of their money from Windows, Office, and the Server products. Indeed Ballmer says they have 7 businesses, which isn’t that different from Apple, who has iPod, Mac, iPad, and iPhone, not to mention the massive iTunes/App Store operation, iTV, mobile search, and misc other things. And of course most of MS’s sales are through partners vs direct like Apple, so there’s an argument they should be more leveraged, not less. So the disparity in senior ranks noted above is pretty striking. I’m not saying MS should have just 10, but 100+ seems kind of insane, no?

    • Guest

      The funniest thing about that MS list, beyond the sheer numbers, is look how many have profiles that haven’t been updated in years. Sort of tells you what a dinosaur organization MS has become.

  • Guest

    Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?

    • Guest

      Original. Not.

  • Guest

    like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic…

  • Reality

    How about bringing innovation back and building great products instead playing with unnecessary high-school level name changes? Who cares if they are called S/F/T VP??? Who is going to change their slow moving approach and ego?

    • Guest

      Yeah. This looks like a PR effort, not a real one.

    • Guest

      Yeah. This looks like a PR effort, not a real one.

  • Reality

    How about bringing innovation back and building great products instead playing with unnecessary high-school level name changes? Who cares if they are called S/F/T VP??? Who is going to change their slow moving approach and ego?