News
Microsoft Reorg Marries Partner and Small Business Groups
- By Anne Stuart
- October 19, 2005
At first blush, they may seem a bit like the odd couple. But Microsoft believes
its partner and small-business divisions were made for each other.
Microsoft announced Monday (Oct. 17) that it is aligning its Worldwide Partner
Group with its Worldwide Small Business Group. Allison Watson, previously vice
president for just the Worldwide Partner Group, now assumes responsibility for
the small-business segment as well. Based in Redmond, the organization will
coordinate strategy for Microsoft’s partner channel and its small-business
customer segment.
Watson continues reporting to Orlando Ayala, who is senior vice president of
Microsoft’s overall Small and Midmarket Solutions & Partner (SMS&P)
Group and COO of Microsoft Business Solutions.
While the inherent link between the partner and small-business groups might
not be immediately evident to outsiders, Watson says there's actually a great
deal of synchronicity between them: "We have 42 million small-business
customers, and many of them interact with Microsoft products through our partners,”
she says. And, of course, many of Microsoft's 240,000 partners are themselves
small businesses, often serving as the first testbed for Microsoft's small-business
strategy as well as rolling out its solutions to its customers.
In her new role, Watson will continue to oversee efforts to help partners extend
their market reach, cut costs, increase profitability and deliver innovate solutions
to their own customers. To that, she’ll add the small-business mission
of showing the owners and managers of companies with fewer than 50 employees
how to grow their businesses on a Microsoft platform.
In addition, Watson announced several personnel changes:
- Former Sun executive Sherle Webb-Robins becomes general manager of
the Microsoft Partner Program. Webb-Robins, who was most recently a vice president
in Sun’s Global Sales Organization, replaces the program’s architect,
Kevin Wueste; Watson says Wueste is considering other leadership jobs
both inside and outside the company.
- Doug Leland becomes general manager of Worldwide Small Business and
head of the Small Business Segment Marketing Team. Leland’s 14-year
Microsoft career includes stints as director of marketing for SQL Server and
director of university relations for Microsoft Research.
- Kati Hvidtfeldt, with Microsoft since 1999, becomes senior director
of ISV and MBS partner strategy.
- Jenni Flinders, a five-year veteran, becomes director of business
management.
All those changes represent “the continued incremental investment”
that Microsoft is making on behalf of partner businesses and customer companies,
Watson says, adding that the company will roll out new initiatives for partners
and customers of all sizes over the next 24 to 36 months. “As a group,
we have a heck of two or three years ahead of us,” she says. “It
can be a great time for all of us.”
The partner-small business marriage follows the massive top-level realignment
that Microsoft announced last month. That restructuring split the company into
three divisions, each headed by its own president. Kevin Johnson and
Jim Allchin were named co-presidents of the Platform Products & Services
Division; Robbie Bach was appointed president of the Microsoft Entertainment
& Devices Division, and Jeff Raikes was named president of the Microsoft
Business Division (created by the combination of the Microsoft Business Solution
group and Microsoft’s Information Worker business). The company also announced
that company CTO Ray Ozzie would expand his responsibilities to help drive software
strategy and execution in all three divisions.
About the Author
Anne Stuart, the former executive editor of Redmond Channel Partner, is a business technology freelance writer based in Boston, Mass.