News

Former Microsoft Server and Cloud Exec Goes to EMC

• By Gladys Rama
• July 20, 2011

The former head of Microsoft's Server and Cloud Division (SCD), Amitabh Srivastava, has joined EMC Corp. as the president of that company's Advanced Storage Division.

Srivastava's new title was reported on Saturday by veteran Microsoft watcher Mary-Jo Foley, who noticed the update to Srivastava's LinkedIn profile. His employment switch to EMC marks the loss of a Microsoft veteran who had taken a number of key roles leading up to Microsoft's strategic move to the cloud.

According to his Microsoft bio, Srivastava began his 14-year career at Redmond as the head of Microsoft Research's Advanced Development Tools group, the main goal of which was to develop "new techniques to improve the performance and quality of Microsoft software." In 2003, Srivastava became the corporate vice president of the Windows group and was charged with the development of the Windows Vista operating system.

In 2006, Srivastava became a co-leader on "Project Red Dog," which Microsoft later announced at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference as Windows Azure, its cloud computing platform.

Three years later, Srivastava was appointed to lead the SCD, formed under the Server & Tools Business umbrella. His appointment and the reorganization appeared to indicate that Microsoft was moving its server and cloud operations more closely together. Srivastava at the time reported to Bob Muglia, who was president of the Server & Tools Business. Muglia subsequently left Microsoft in January of this year, which roughly coincided with a string of high-profile executive exits at the company.

After Muglia's departure, Srivastava became the presumptive choice for the new Server & Tools president. However, Microsoft appointed Satya Nadella, previously the senior vice president of R&D at Microsoft's Online Services Division, to that role. Srivastava's plan to resign from Microsoft was announced on the same day as Nadella's promotion.

EMC, Srivastava's new company, is the parent company of virtualization giant VMware, which is headed by another former Microsoft executive, Paul Maritz. While EMC and Microsoft each have competing products in the virtualization space, the two companies also have a partnership to ensure interoperability among their products.