News

Microsoft System Center Exec Promoted to VP Position

• By Kurt Mackie
• July 29, 2009

Microsoft on Tuesday announced the promotion of Brad Anderson, an executive who helped foster various server management products in the Microsoft System Center product line.

Anderson now holds the title of corporate vice president of the Management and Services Division at Microsoft. Previously, he was general manager of that division for about two years.

The System Center line has given Microsoft a bounce in generally bad economic times. Microsoft reported decreased revenues across all of its divisions compared with last year in its fourth-quarter 2009 report. A big exception was "increased Enterprise CAL Suites and System Center revenue," according to the report.

A System Center Team blog credited Anderson for helping get a number of products shipped on time. Those products included "new versions of System Center Configuration Manager, System Center Operations Manager, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and System Center Virtual Machine Manager," according to the blog.

Anderson now oversees a global team centered on those products, plus a few more. Also under his purview will be "Windows Update/Microsoft Update [and] management infrastructure components in Windows Client and Windows Server," according to a Microsoft bio.

Another emphasis for Anderson is the "dynamic desktop," a Microsoft concept of using virtualization, "MDOP capabilities, System Center, and Windows" to provision and connect mobile workers in an organization. The topic was a focus of Anderson's speech in April before a crowd at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas.