Steven Sinfosky: S is for Short Notice

Steven Sinofsky is – oops, sorry, was – head of Microsoft’s Windows division. He has left at not just short notice but no notice, a few weeks after MS launched Windows 8 (supposedly the future of Microsoft).

Steven Sinofsky was behind the development and marketing of Internet Explorer and Windows, and online services including Outlook.com. A well-educated Russian-speaker, Steven Sinofsky started out with Microsoft as a software design engineer. Rising up through the ranks, he eventually found himself actively convincing engineers not to move to Google. Sinfosky has spoken about working for Microsoft and what new employees never know or suspect. These talks are available online.

Leadership change, or internal problem?

Microsoft neatly side-stepped the issue on its site, describing it as a leadership change. The BBC suggests it’s about internal problems, and the BBC knows a thing or two about that. We couldn’t possibly comment, but will just mention that this marks the third in a series of high profile tech leadership changes: Apple shuffled the pieces following disappointing quarterly results and *that* mapping problem, Yahoo recently appointed its third chief executive in a year in a bid to regain lost market share, and now Microsoft has lost its Windows and Windows Live President. Well well.

Steven Sinofsky’s departure: in the media

Here’s more on that precipitous departure, updated 15.11.12:

New Microsoft Windows chief “in shock” – suggestions that Steven Sinfosky’s departure was anything but “orderly”.

And here’s more: the Guardian technology’s take on Steven Sinofsky’s “amicable sacking”.