Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division re-organized

January 22, 2010 | By Surur

Just prior to the most important Mobile World Congress in the company’s history, Microsoft has launched a major reorganization of its Entertainment and Devices Division, which is responsible for Windows Mobile, Zune, Media Center and Mediaroom IPTV products.

The TV, Video and Media group has been moved to the Interactive Entertainment Business Division, which is in charge of Xbox, Games for Windows and Microsoft Game Studios, all under the umbrella of the Entertainment and Devices Division.

Just when the cosiest arrangement for making the greatest entertainment device possible seems to have been created, ZDNet reports on a rumour that Windows Mobile may be moved to the Windows, Internet Explorer and Windows Live Division. Microsoft has not commented on the rumour, but regarding the integration of their TV and Gaming division said:

“As a natural evolution of the Interactive Entertainment Business, our consumer products and experiences focused on games, movies, TV and music will move into IEB, led by SVP Don Mattrick. In addition, we’ve formed a new centralized E&D services infrastructure team, which will act as a combined resource across the division. Finally, Enrique Rodriguez has decided to move on from his leadership position running the TV, video and music business and is evaluating his next career opportunity. The TVM first party business, Zune and Windows Media Center will move to IEB, and Mediaroom, the TV platform business, will become a standalone group within E&D, reporting directly to (E&D) President Robbie Bach.”

While the effect of all these changes on Windows Mobile are not clear, I am sure most of us look forward to a day where all the various properties of Microsoft work together better for a fuller and more integrated experience.

Read much more detail on the Mary Foley’s All About Microsoft blog here.

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About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged microsoft, windows mobile

Craig S

Roz Ho's the one to blame for much mismanagement and delay, as head of "Premium Mobile Experiences". Not sure how far down on the chart Loke Uei would fit.. cool guy but the fact that he's more into old-style flip and candybar phones than modern touchscreesns always worried me.

I say if Sinofsky is somewhere over Mobile then that's a great thing

Paul

Why blame Ho? Wasn't Bach to the one who had overall responsiblity for the division, including promoting her? Wasn't he the guy who predicted that the iPhone wouldn't effect their business at all? Everything in E&D has failed, either outright or financially. Mobile is just the latest and perhaps most strategic example. The consistent thing through all that isn't Ho, or Lee, or any number of others. It's Bach. I don't think there's any doubt that Mobile under Sinofsky wouldn't have misjudged the competition, and wouldn't have taken more than two years to even begin responding.

GP007

I think moving TV and media under the same division that does the Xbox and games in general makes sense, the two go together anyways.

Paul

Group, not division. But yeah it does. So does creating a central infrastructure group for the division. Should have been done long ago, then seeing nothing from WinMo while Zune HD shipped would have been less likely. The interesting part is Bach taking over the TV platform group (Mediaroom). Why? Why now? Is it related to the recent lawsuit with Tivo/AT&T? Is the group finally about to break out and Bach needs the credit to keep his job? Are they about to go the other way and he thinks he's uniquely qualified to turn it around? Har har. Lots of questions. One thing is for sure, none of these changes are a "natural evolution".

GP007

Mediaroom is a key part to MS's future plans and the whole 3 screens vision since it targets 1 of them, the TV, and with the changes made it also targets another one, mobile as the demo at CES showed, with the HD streaming from mediaroom service right to a HD2!

It's also now found it's way to the PC and a part of MediaCenter, so that's the 3rd screen right there.

http://www.facebook.com/j.r.a.ellis John Ellis

Microsoft has been an umbrella for lots of divisions running as separate entities ever since their antitrust case, they suffer as a result of this because their products don't fuse together in a synergistic releationship as they should. Therefore I am completely in favour of bundling groups together if it means a more cohesive development strategy between them.
NuShrike

Being the trend of the converged devices to be multimedia, and multimedia requires strong and tight support from the hardware and OS, it's head-scratching that they would move WM to the OS division instead of the faster and more demanding media leg.

Maybe media has too temporal a vision comparatively?

GP007

Well, it wasn't moved was it? I don't see that said anywhere. But if WM does move over to the OS side along with Windows it sorta fits. Since the goal is to offer media and stuff via services and not part of the OS itself, then it doesn't have to be part of the media group etc. You can now work on the OS itself, and then the media group can do the services and any silverlight related webapps etc to push down those features to phones after the OS is done.

It's how MediaCenter is part of a different group away from the core Windows OS part, yet they come together just fine.

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