By Shira Ovide
Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella continues to put his stamp on
the company, announcing Wednesday an executive shuffle that
involves the departure of former Nokia Corp. 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 after a designated
transition period," the company said in a news release. Separately,
Mark Penn, who had served in a senior strategist role, is leaving
Microsoft as well.
Mr. Elop's departure is the latest sign Microsoft is hitting the
reset button on its struggling smartphone hardware business. The
more than $9 billion purchase of Nokia's handset business--a deal
struck by Mr. Nadella's predecessor Steve Ballmer in late 2013--was
supposed to make Microsoft a relevant player in smartphones.
Instead under Mr. Elop's leadership at Microsoft, the company's
Windows smartphones lost market share and bled red ink. The company
recently said it planned to further cut costs at the smartphone
business and other hardware units. Nokia already was targeted for
thousands of job cuts in the biggest layoffs in Microsoft's
history, announced last year.
Microsoft's hardware devices businesses, which Mr. Elop ran,
will now be folded into a new division with Microsoft's operating
systems group. Terry Myerson, also an executive vice president,
will lead the division.
Write to Shira Ovide at shira.ovide@wsj.com
Chelsey Dulaney contributed to this article
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