Microsoft Slices Storage From Search

By Mary Jander, January 11, 2008, NOON

When Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Business Division (MBD), retires in September, the Server and Tools Business he oversaw, home of Microsoft Storage Server products, will also leave MBD.

It is Microsoft's plan to move Server and Tools into a separate division under the leadership of its current SVP Bob Muglia, who will then answer directly to Microsoft president Steve Ballmer.

Raikes will be replaced by Juniper's ex-COO, Stephen Elop.

Perhaps none of this will have a direct impact on storage customers. But it's interesting to see the Server and Tools division moving out on its own. The implication is that market growth has advanced the status of the server product line within Microsoft.At the same time, it's not clear what effect these changes will have on Microsoft's planned acquisition of search software supplier FAST for $1.2 billion. And data classification and search functions are top of mind for many storage managers.

MBD still owns Sharepoint, which Raikes has said will become a key platform for the FAST technology. With the changes, Sharepoint and the server division will live in different parts of the company.

Perhaps this won't affect any synergies. There's always the chance that things will go better for both products by devoting separate divisional resources to each.

We'll see.Have a comment on this story? Please click "Discuss" below. If you'd like to contact Byte and Switch's editors directly, send us a message.