News

Veghte Quitting Windows VP Position

• By Kurt Mackie
• January 14, 2010

Bill Veghte is stepping down as senior vice president for Windows Business.

Veghte will leave Microsoft at the end of this month after 20 years of service at various roles at Microsoft. In his current position, Veghte had been engaged in spearheading the advertising and marketing efforts for the Windows 7 team, according to his Microsoft bio. He also planned sales and marketing efforts for Internet Explorer and Windows Live products, including Messenger and Hotmail.

In July 2009, Veghte's position was left somewhat in limbo after Steven Sinofsky was promoted to president of the Windows Division. Microsoft's announcement at that time stated that Tami Reller, corporate vice president and CFO for Windows and Windows Live, would take over Windows marketing functions while Veghte would move into an unspecified leadership position.

Apparently, Veghte had been looking for a new job at Microsoft but decided to leave after meeting with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, according to a story by veteran Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley. A letter from Ballmer to Microsoft executives indicated that Veghte was looking for something different.

"Bill has indicated a desire to run a business in a more end-to-end fashion and continue to explore new areas in the broad technology, communications and services sectors," Ballmer wrote in the letter.

In his 20 years at Microsoft, Veghte was involved with a number of products, including Office, Windows CE, Windows Server 2003 and Small Business Server 2003, among others.