Microsoft taps Scott Guthrie to head cloud business

The exec who formerly ran Microsoft's cloud services business just officially anointed his successor.

In a note to Microsoft employees, Satya Nadella announced that Scott Guthrie is the company's new executive vice president of cloud and enterprise group. Guthrie has been running the group since Nadella's appointment as Microsoft CEO in early February.

At the same time, Stephen Elop, who was one of the CEO candidates considered by the board, officially will be rejoining Microsoft as the executive vice president of its Devices Group. Elop is returning to Microsoft as part of the company's acquisition of Nokia's mobile business, which is expected to close next month. He will report to Nadella.

One other bit of executive housekeeping: Phil Spencer was put in charge of combining the Xbox and Xbox Live development teams with the Microsoft Studios team. It's a nice promotion for the 25-year Microsoft veteran, who has served as the chief of Microsoft Studios. Last July Don Mattrick, the highly regarded executive who ran the Xbox business, left Microsoft to run game maker Zynga.

The changes come in advance of the company's Build Conference for developers, which is being held this week in San Francisco. The full text of the email is below:

From: Satya Nadella
To: Microsoft - All Employees
Date: March 31, 2014
Subject: Tuning our organization

Today marks the start of another big week for Microsoft as we gear up for the Build conference in San Francisco. We continue to push on the momentum from last week's news about how we will thrive and grow in a mobile-first, cloud-first world, as shown by the great Office apps for iOS, rich new APIs for developers and our new Enterprise Mobility Suite.

In advance of Build, I want to highlight three announcements about how we're continuing to evolve and tune our organization for maximum focus and impact.

First, I am pleased to announce that after his two months as acting leader for the Cloud and Enterprise organization, I have promoted Scott Guthrie to Executive Vice President, where he will continue to lead and drive the organization. As you know, Scott has been a very public and passionate evangelist for many of our most important developer and infrastructure businesses. Since joining Microsoft in 1997, he has made critical contributions to .NET and other pivotal technologies that help power the Microsoft ecosystem today, and most recently has been the driver behind the unprecedented growth of Microsoft Azure. As a leader, Scott has shown incredible energy and insight into how we create technology that others can build on, and which can be built on what others have created. Please join me in congratulating Scott on his promotion!

Next, I have asked Phil Spencer to take on a new role leading Xbox, combining the Xbox and Xbox Live development teams with the Microsoft Studios team. Phil will report to Terry Myerson, allowing us to keep gaming close to the group developing operating systems across devices. In this new job, Phil will lead the Xbox, Xbox Live, Xbox Music and Xbox Video teams, and Microsoft Studios. Combining all our software, gaming and content assets across the Xbox team under a single leader and aligning with the OSG team will help ensure we continue to do great work across the Xbox business, and bring more of the magic of Xbox to all form factors, including tablets, PCs and phones. Phil will continue his close partnership with Yusuf Mehdi, who leads business strategy and marketing for Xbox, George Peckham, who heads up third-party partnerships and Mike Angiulo, who will continue leading Xbox hardware. Over the years, Phil's team at Microsoft Studios has helped build a community of more than 80 million Xbox owners and 48 million Xbox Live members through blockbuster game franchises such as "Halo," "Gears of War," "Kinect Sports," "Fable," "Forza Motorsport" and many others. He's helped drive the development of brand-new entertainment offerings like the partnership with the NFL and the formation of Xbox Entertainment Studios. I love the way the Xbox team is focused on great games and gaming experiences (go, "Titanfall"!), connects with its fans, pushes the boundary of entertainment and has embraced the power of the cloud in such interesting and impactful ways. Phil is the right person to lead Xbox forward.

Finally, effective with the close of our deal with Nokia, Stephen Elop will join Microsoft as Executive Vice President, Microsoft Devices Group, reporting to me. We expect to close the acquisition by the end of April 2014. I've had a chance to work closely with Stephen, when he was previously a senior leader with Microsoft, as a key partner during his tenure as Nokia CEO, and again in the last several months as we've worked through the initial stages of integration planning. I look forward to working with Stephen as a key member of the senior leadership team and welcoming the Nokia Devices and Services employees to the Microsoft family. The mobile capabilities, hardware design expertise, and world-class manufacturing and supply chain operations they bring will help us drive innovations in devices to delight our customers. Stephen will partner closely with Phil and Terry on Xbox and will bring together many of the top leaders from his existing Nokia Devices and Services organization as well as the current leaders of the Devices and Studios team.

Recently, I've discussed with the Microsoft leadership team the need to zero in on what truly makes Microsoft unique. As I said on my first day, we need to do everything possible to thrive in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. The announcements last week, our news this week, the Nokia acquisition closing soon, and the leaders and teams we are putting in place are all great first steps in making this happen.

There's a lot of work ahead of us and I am counting on every single one of you to bring your "A" game every single day. I look forward to our second employee Q&A session on Thursday and hearing what's on your mind and sharing more about what's on mine.

Satya