Microsoft names a new exec 2001-02-15
From my hometown paper, I live about 1 mile from MSFT HQ
Journal Wire Services
Rick Belluzzo becomes president, COO of company
REDMOND -- Microsoft Corp. yesterday named longtime computer and software industry executive Rick Belluzzo as its new president and chief operating officer.
Belluzzo, who currently heads Microsoft's consumer division, will replace Chief Operating Officer Robert Herbold, who is retiring but plans to continue to work for the Redmond-based software giant part time.
Belluzzo is also gaining the title of president, which was previously held by Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.
Ballmer said he wanted to give Belluzzo a broader sense of responsibility. Ballmer noted that the move should not be interpreted as a shift in focus toward the consumer side of the business.
``We make most of our money selling to businesses, and we have products that have appealed to consumers and businesses,'' Ballmer said. ``There's no change in the strategy, in any way, shape or form.''
In his new position, Belluzzo will be in charge of business strategy and direct business operations, sales, marketing and business development.
Ballmer said Belluzzo will take over the day-to-day business aspects of the company, allowing Ballmer to focus on larger issues, including planning Microsoft's new .NET Internet strategy and overseeing investments in new businesses.
``I'm an operational guy,'' Belluzzo said. ``My experience has always been about building teams and pursuing businesses and making decisions and being tough about those decisions.''
Yesterday's move is the clearest signal yet of Microsoft's acknowledgement that the future of computing lies beyond the personal computer, the foundation of its business and still the source of about 70 percent of its revenue.
Since Microsoft introduced its .NET initiative last year with much fanfare, analysts and investors have pressed the world's biggest software company to define its amorphous and loosely defined plan.
Belluzzo, 47, has spent the past 18 months as a Microsoft group vice president, overseeing the development of the .NET platform, Microsoft's UltimateTV service and the Xbox video-game console, which is set to be released this coming fall. His responsibilities also included running the MSN network of Web sites.
Prior to joining Microsoft in September 1999, Belluzzo spent 19 months as the chief executive of Silicon Graphics Inc. and previously spent 23 years at Hewlett-Packard Co., where he worked his way up through the printer business until he was No. 2 to former Chief Executive Lew Platt.
The son of Italian immigrants, Belluzzo has an accounting degree from Golden Gate University in San Francisco. He first became friendly with Ballmer while Belluzzo was at Hewlett-Packard, a Microsoft customer and partner.
Belluzzo's promotion yesterday makes him the first outsider in more than 17 years to attain a top strategic role at Microsoft.
``I view it as a positive sign that the company has not gotten inbred,'' said W. Christopher Mortenson, an analyst for Deutsche Banc Alex Brown. ``There are plenty of people at Microsoft who understand the PC business.''
Analysts yesterday were trying to sort out how the new arrangement would work.
``I would think of Ballmer and Belluzzo as co-presidents,'' said George Godfrey, analyst for ING Barings.
Belluzzo's career is more than a simple story of achievement.
At the time Belluzzo was hired to run Microsoft's consumer business, some analysts expressed concern that he lacked software-industry experience and failed to turn around Silicon Graphics during his brief stint as the money-losing company's CEO, producing just one profitable quarter before resigning.
What's more, Belluzzo was asked to take over a Microsoft division that was viewed at the time by industry watchers as a hodgepodge of stalled Internet efforts and disparate products.
Now, some analysts credit Belluzzo with reviving MSN and getting rid of businesses that didn't belong in his group or at Microsoft. Under his leadership, MSN has consistently placed in the top three Web-site networks in the U.S. and the world. He killed a tax-preparation product and directed the sale of Microsoft's interest in an online bill-payment company.
``His performance at Silicon Graphics was one of the concerns I had about him when they hired him for MSN,'' said analyst Scott McAdams, who heads Seattle-based McAdams, Wright Ragen in Seattle. ``But now, when I see what he's done with MSN, I have to say, `job well done.'''
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