March 13th, 2008
Two more Microsoft execs fly the coop
A couple more execs from Microsoft’s list of who’s who at the company have moved to allegedly greener pastures.
Joanne Bradford, corporate vice president and chief media officer of MSN, is leaving Microsoft to join Internet-based ad agency Spot Runner Inc, as initially reported by Todd Bishop at the Seattle Post-intelligencer. Bradford most recently reported to Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, Portals & Advertising Platform Group . Bradford has been with Microsoft since 2001.
Bradford’s spot will be filled, in the interm, by Greg Nelson, a 12-year Microsoft veteran, Bishop reported.
Meanwhile, on a different side of the Microsoft house, Amir Majidimehr, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft’s Consumer Media Technology Group, quietly has left the company.
Majidimehr’s team was part of Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, and was charged with delivering Microsoft digital media technology to mobile operators and consumer electronics manufacturers. His team also was in charge of Microsoft’s digital-rights management and advanced-media strategies, including the lame-duck HD-DVD disc format.
It wasn’t support of HD-DVD that led to Majidimehr’s departure, Microsoft officials said. A company spokesman sent the following e-mail confirmation:
“So the TV platform and Live Services businesses within the Entertainment and Devices Division were restructured last October, which resulted in the Consumer Media Technologies business led by Amir being absorbed into these two organizations. As such, there was no replacement. Amir moved over for a time to special projects focusing on future connected entertainment scenarios, but then announced in January that he decided to pursue other opportunities outside of Microsoft. I spoke to him briefly the day he left, and he said he had several opportunities to pursue, but hadn’t decided which one yet.”
(Majidimehr’s bio is still on Microsoft’s Web site, with no notice of his departure.)
The restructuring resulted in the unification of Microsoft’s IPTV, Media Center and HD DVD initiatives into a single organization, known as the Microsoft Connected TV business group.
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