Microsoft’s Kevin Johnson Failed Test to Go Higher

There is tons of news out there on Micosoft’s Kevin Johnson failed leadership to acquire Yahoo. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=kevin+johnson

The Mini Microsoft guys provide an insider view.

I'm really surprised. There was Mr. Johnson up on stage this morning during the Town Hall causing me to roll my eyes with his fake enthusiasm and now he's leaving Dodge. On the horse he rode in on 16 years back. I know he did a lot to pick up the pieces after the Vista-debacle and is probably due a good amount of praise for letting Win7 align itself to be on the winning trajectory, but I just never bonded with Mr. Johnson's leadership. And some of the projects he's interested in and driving just leave me cold (e.g., the upcoming MSN UI revamp. It puts the F in WTF).

Is he taking the opportunity to be CEO of Juniper? Is he the fall guy for Yahoo! being such a bumbling mess? Is his departure meant to make way for a big acquisition / merger?

As we consider the long race to succeed Ballmer, I was certainly worried that Mr. Johnson was at the top of the stack rank. No reason to worry anymore! And three of my favorite technical leaders, Mr. Sinofsky, Mr. DeVaan, and Mr. Veghte, all move up a notch. Hey, one less layer in the company. Throw all three of them in the running, eh?

Bottom Line: Kevin Johnson was given a task to grow the Microsoft Search business. He led the Yahoo efforts. The whole Yahoo efforts are an embarrassment to Microsoft. Kevin you failed the test, let somebody else give it a try. Next are Sinofsky, DeVann, and Veghte. Who will succeed Ballmer?

Comments

[Rick]

Good riddance. It certainly looks like he hasn't done anything for MS in regards to increasing market share in the search realm. I would be very afraid if he was ever in the running for Ballmers job. Guess we lucked out on this one.