Under pressure in the consumer market, Microsoft has moved to restructure their top management after several senior executives announced that they were quitting the Company last night.
The exits come as Microsoft struggles in the smartphone market, fails to grow share of the Windows OS market and is under pressure in the gaming console market.
This week at the E3 Expo in Los Vegas the Company is showing off their new HoloLens “mixed reality” headsets which the Company is hoping to replace Kinect which was another management disaster for Microsoft.
Senior consumer executives at the struggling software Company bundled a camera with the Xbox One, which made it more expensive than the PlayStation 4.
After initial sales lagged, Microsoft finally began gaining ground by letting people buy the Xbox One without Kinect. While the company is stepping carefully to bring HoloLens into the Xbox fold, it has all but pushed Kinect out the door.
Not once during the company’s 90-minute presentation on Monday was it mentioned.
However analysts are claiming that the HoloLens product is far from mature and there is no certainty it will be a commercial success up against several other Virtual Reality headsets.
On the plus side, you could walk around with a HoloLens However, the actual portion of the screen where a hologram can appear is relatively small. Don’t expect to see any holograms in your peripheral vision.
Analysts claim that he augmented-reality headset presents a two-pronged challenge. The first one is technical. It’s just not that easy to create a device that makes holograms appear to be actual objects in the physical world.
Last night Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was forced to announce an executive shuffle that involves the departure of former Nokia chief Stephen Elop.
Mr. Elop was the biggest surprise departure in the executive shuffle. Two other Microsoft executives, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder, will, like Mr. Elop “leave Microsoft in coming weeks.
Rudder was a seasoned executive who I got to know when we launched Windows NT Magazine. At the time he was running the Windows NT Division which is an area of the business where Microsoft has been highly successful.
Separately, Mark Penn, who had served in a senior strategist role, is leaving Microsoft as well.
The departure of Mr. Elop along with one of his closest deputies, Jo Harlow, is the latest sign that Microsoft is trying to change the direction of their consumer business.
