The last couple days I’ve been seeing this Microsoft reorganization news:

Today, we are announcing the creation of three new business divisions — Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division, which will be led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-Presidents; Microsoft Business Division to be led by Jeff Raikes as President; and, Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division, which will be led by Robbie Bach as President. Our goal in making these changes is to enable Microsoft to achieve greater agility in managing the incredible growth ahead and executing our software-based services strategy.

That’s a memo from Steve Balmer that has been making the rounds. It seems to me that this is more newsworthy to Microsoft employees and shareholders than customers. Their “goal” is somewhat interesting though because it points to the fact that somebody sees a shakeup is in order. It’s about time.

And yet I wonder if this is this just musical chairs with execs? Doesn’t look like anybody is getting axed. Jim Allchin has decided to retire at the end of 2006, about the time Vista is scheduled to ship (just coincidence, IMO), so that’s one casualty. Scoble had a brief post about this which he quickly edited, claiming he was being too “rah rah” about the whole thing and to check his mudpit (comments) for more details. I checked and there wasn’t much more substance there either.

Speaking of Scoble, congratulations to him on making Microsoft.com front page news (pictured below) for his blog webcast yesterday. I wish I could have made it to show support and see if he dropped any blogging nuggets. He linked to three people, Brandon LeBlanc (Brandon left detailed notes here), Susan Hernandez and The Wacko (nice name) who grooved on it. Recently he snagged his first interview with Bill Gates, too. As the Jefferson’s would say about him, he’s: “… movin’ on up!”

I also saw him remark recently on his blog that he’s been offered “a lot” more money than he is currently making for other jobs (yes, plural) and he turned them down. He feels like he has one of the best jobs at Microsoft. Hmm, that sounds a little bit political to me, Robert.

And yet if you watch his blog you’ll see him put in signals here amd there over what he’s being paid like this:

One of my bosses says “can you please edit your videos?” Um, no. You think I’m a professional or something? Heh! Double my salary and I’ll start editing the videos.

Obviously he is teasing there, but I still say he’s underpaid and I think he’d like to have the money he was offered elsewhere at Microsoft. If he doesn’t get it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him move within the next year or two. Where would he go? Apple? Google? Ouch!

Maybe part of Balmer’s reorganization memo should have included a raise for Scoble? Then again, if Scoble had thrown up an ad or two (Google contextual ads, wouldn’t that freak people out, Robert? lol), that front page Microsoft link could have made up for some of his shorted salary. Rimshot. That’s a joke. A joke.

Seriously, I wonder how he can get away with blogging about his pay — his work — and not have somebody tell him to shut the hell up? I’m not talking about the joking stuff aside but those who read his blog entries and mudpit know exactly what I’m talking about.

Maybe his bosses are afraid that he’ll do just the opposite, he’ll blog about it and actually go somewhere else and get paid more. An interesting powerplay could be in effect there … or, maybe they really don’t care about Scoble’s not-so-gentle raise requests on his blog because he’s not going to get paid more until he actually threatens to go somewhere else. And so far he hasn’t done that publically.

Still, a message should flash on Scoble’s blog every time he talks about his pay that says: “WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS ON YOUR BLOG.”

The transparent push for a Scoble raise aside, maybe I shouldn’t bother posting about this Microsoft reorganization stuff because it’s really not that interesting to me. Is this interesting to anybody else? Is there something really meaty here in the exec shifting that I’m just missing? This is my first non-hmm in awhile, I guess. Let’s hope a pattern doesn’t emerge.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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