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Head of Microsoft Services Group Quits

Posted on: Wednesday, 26 November 2003, 06:00 CST

Nov. 26--Microsoft lost its third vice president in three weeks yesterday, when services head Mike Sinneck resigned to "pursue other opportunities outside of Microsoft," the company said.

All three executives were hired away from leading companies in markets Microsoft is trying to crack. Their short stays could reinforce Microsoft's reputation for resisting leaders brought in from other companies.

The resignations also come after the disclosure that the company stumbled in the past quarter, blaming lost corporate sales on distractions created by software-security problems and reorganizations of the company's business-customer sales force.

The company praised all three outgoing executives and said the resignations were unrelated. "They're just completely different," said Crystal Duncan, a spokeswoman with Waggener Edstrom, which handles public relations for Microsoft. "They were making decisions to leave due to personal reasons, completely separate from one another."

Other resignations this month included Juha Christensen, vice president of mobile-devices marketing, who is leaving Monday to start a company in the Bay Area. He co-founded the Symbian mobile software company backed by industry leaders such as Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola before he was hired by Microsoft in September 2000. The company also lost Joe Eschbach, a marketing executive in the Office group, who resigned to pursue "other opportunities," a spokesman said last week. Eschbach was head of Adobe's e-paper group before he came to Redmond in August 2002.

Sinneck spent 32 years at IBM and led its services group -- helping customers select, install and manage systems -- before he was hired by Microsoft in January 2002. His hiring came as Microsoft renewed its effort to sell to larger and larger businesses.

Duncan said he's moving back to the East Coast. The company would not make Sinneck available.

Sinneck's departure could be related to Microsoft's vacillating approach to services, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland. At times Microsoft seems to ramp up its consulting business to compete with IBM Global Services, but at other times it seems to scale back and let partner companies take the lead on consulting work, he said.

Sinneck scaled back the group last year in response to protests from partner companies that it was taking their business.

One clue that Microsoft is taking the lower-key approach is that it's not hiring anyone to replace Sinneck, instead asking another executive to take on the consulting business, Rosoff said.

Sinneck's job will be handled by Chief Information Officer Rick Devenuti, a 16-year company veteran who grew up in Federal Way. Devenuti will continue managing internal-technology systems. But he'll report to a new boss, sales chief Kevin Johnson, instead of John Connors, chief financial officer.Rosoff said it can be hard for newcomers to form crucial alliances with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer or Chairman Bill Gates.

There's a line inside the company about high-level executives, Rosoff said: "You're either a friend of Bill, a friend of Steve or you're out of luck."

The executives also may be looking elsewhere because Microsoft's growth has slowed, the stock is down and the company is "taking a breather," said technology commentator and consultant Mark Anderson in Friday Harbor. But the company continues to hire talent away from competitors. Monday, it disclosed that it hired Sun Microsystems Vice President Barbara Gordon to handle its 50 largest sales accounts.

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(c) 2003, The Seattle Times. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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