Microsoft Hires Former at&T Wireless Executive
Posted on: Wednesday, 2 March 2005, 06:00 CST
Microsoft Corp. yesterday named Michael Sievert, former AT&T Wireless Services Inc. chief marketing officer, as the new corporate vice president in charge of product management for the company's flagship Windows operating system for personal computers.
The company said Sievert's duties will include marketing, product management and product planning for the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn.
In his new role, Sievert replaces Tom Button, who has taken a leave of absence "due to family medical reasons," Microsoft said in a statement. The company said Button plans to ultimately return to Microsoft in a different role.
After enduring a series of delays, Microsoft is promising a 2006 release for the next Windows version, scaling back its ambitions for some product features to help its programmers hit the deadline.
The PC operating system remains the company's most profitable product.
Sievert, 35, could not be reached for comment last night. Upon joining AT&T Wireless in 2002, Sievert inherited the Redmond-based wireless company's previously launched mLife marketing campaign, which had been criticized as unintelligible and cryptic. Sievert ultimately moved AT&T Wireless away from that mLife slogan to a campaign that urged consumers to "Reach out to the wireless service America trusts."
Cingular Wireless, which acquired AT&T Wireless in a $41 billion deal in October, decided to keep its own chief marketing officer, Marc Lefar. As a result, Sievert was among the former AT&T Wireless executives who left the combined company.
Mark Siegel, a Cingular spokesman formerly with AT&T Wireless, yesterday called Sievert "very bright and very talented." Siegel said he wasn't surprised that Sievert had so quickly landed another high-level executive position.
Before joining AT&T Wireless, Sievert was chief global marketing and sales officer for E-Trade Financial Corp., where he was part of the team that helped build the online financial services company's brand during the technology boom of the late 1990s.
P-I reporter Todd Bishop can be reached at 206-448-8221 or toddbishop@seattlepi.com
Source: Seattle Post - Intelligencer
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