Microsoft Has a New Windows and Surface Chief (theverge.com) 16
Tom Warren reports via The Verge: Microsoft is naming Pavan Davuluri as its new Windows and Surface chief today. After Panos Panay's surprise departure to Amazon last year, Microsoft split up the Windows and Surface groups under two different leaders. Davuluri took over the Surface silicon and devices work, with Mikhail Parakhin leading a new team focused on Windows and web experiences. Now both Windows and Surface will be Davuluri's responsibility, as Parakhin has "decided to explore new roles."
The Verge has obtained an internal memo from Rajesh Jha, Microsoft's head of experiences and devices, outlining the new Windows organization. Microsoft is now bringing together its Windows and devices teams once more. "This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era," explains Jha. Pavan Davuluri is now the leader of Microsoft's Windows and Surface team, reporting directly to Rajesh Jha. Davuluri has worked at Microsoft for more than 23 years and was deeply involved in the company's work with Qualcomm and AMD to create custom Surface processors.
Mikhail Parakhin will now report to Kevin Scott during a transition phase, but his future at Microsoft looks uncertain, and it's likely those "new roles" will be outside the company. Parakhin had been working closely on Bing Chat before taking on the broader Windows engineering responsibilities and changes to Microsoft Edge. The Windows shake-up comes just days after Google DeepMind co-founder and former Inflection AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman joined Microsoft as the CEO of a new AI team. Microsoft also hired a bunch of Inflection AI employees, including co-founder Karen Simonyan who is now the chief scientist of Microsoft AI.
The Verge has obtained an internal memo from Rajesh Jha, Microsoft's head of experiences and devices, outlining the new Windows organization. Microsoft is now bringing together its Windows and devices teams once more. "This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era," explains Jha. Pavan Davuluri is now the leader of Microsoft's Windows and Surface team, reporting directly to Rajesh Jha. Davuluri has worked at Microsoft for more than 23 years and was deeply involved in the company's work with Qualcomm and AMD to create custom Surface processors.
Mikhail Parakhin will now report to Kevin Scott during a transition phase, but his future at Microsoft looks uncertain, and it's likely those "new roles" will be outside the company. Parakhin had been working closely on Bing Chat before taking on the broader Windows engineering responsibilities and changes to Microsoft Edge. The Windows shake-up comes just days after Google DeepMind co-founder and former Inflection AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman joined Microsoft as the CEO of a new AI team. Microsoft also hired a bunch of Inflection AI employees, including co-founder Karen Simonyan who is now the chief scientist of Microsoft AI.
Yeah... (Score:2)
Let's get this party going!
Holistic, AI, cloud...got'em all (Score:3)
"This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era,"
Now we know why Rajesh Jha has his position. I'll bet he said that with a straight face.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Now we know why Rajesh Jha has his position.
Diversity hire?
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, racism rears its ugly head. Clearly he didn't have the right kind of special sauce (given the quote, I claim he did) because he was not a White American.
Let me guess, you figure it is MS filling out their Nepali quota?
Re: (Score:2)
Special sauce for what? To be a good engineer or to be an efficient bullshitter?
Re: (Score:1)
Their CEO is Indian as well. Unlike what most people believe, most cultures are racist towards others and tend to surround themselves with others of the same race.
Re:Holistic, AI, cloud...got'em all (Score:4, Insightful)
Usual question (Score:2)
Can we disable that and if, how?
Windows and Surface...when will they..... (Score:2)
So is a "windows and surface chief" (Score:2)
the new PC name for a janitor that also cleans windows?
Personally I'm not buying it. I'm sticking to "localized sanitation engineer".
Big iron with a 12-inch form-factor (Score:2)
Microsoft wants to be the IBM of hardware, OS & software, AI interfaces, terminal-based (cloud) computing, online advertising & searching: Monolithic iron achieved via vertical integration.
Re:Big iron with a 12-inch form-factor (Score:5, Interesting)
You misunderstand their focus. They just want to keep quarterly results high enough that the stock doesn't tank. This impacts everyone inside, as a significant portion of MSFT compensation is in stock options. Also, this drop would trigger management replacement and layoffs. Their ideas about strategy all revolve around this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully they become as relevant as IBM pretty soon too.