Another Microsoft Exec Jumps Ship

Another battle lost by Microsoft. In the latest defection, Vic Gundotra, has jumped ship to Google, he will apparently take a year off, to make sure he clears the non compete agreement and then go to work for the search engine giant.

It hasn’t been a good month for Microsoft’s Google-fighters. So bad that one left abruptly last week, and another decided this week to switch teams.

Vic Gundotra, a general manager for platform evangelism at Microsoft and a 15-year employee, has agreed to join Google after first spending a year working on charitable endeavors, Business 2.0 has learned.

“Mr. Gundotra has resigned from Microsoft (Charts) and entered into an agreement with Google,” Google (Charts) spokesman Steve Langdon wrote in an emailed statement. “He will not be a Google employee for one year and intends to spend that time on philanthropic pursuits. We are uncertain what precise role he will play when he begins working for Google, but he has a broad range of skills and experience which we believe will be valuable to Google.” Source: CNN via techmeme

Scoble says it’s not brain drain, it’s mearly people moving around and taking different positions,

Is there a brain drain going on at Microsoft? It sure looks that way but keep in mind that Vic and I didn’t write code. We didn?t make the products.

Those of us who whether deserved or not become public faces of companies can wildly change the perceptions of those companies.

There are 60,000+ people working at Microsoft. Not two or three. Or even 15.

What’s ironic is I met quite a few employees at Microsoft who used to work at Google. No one talks about them.

On the other hand, this is a win for Google and a loss for Microsoft. They got a good guy. Source: scobleizer

Is there more to come, the Mini Microsoft blog thinks so, as people are talking about RIF’s at Microsoft and reducing employees by 50%. And according to this post on News.com,

Microsoft on Wednesday shuffled around several more executives as part of its ongoing restructuring of the company.

In the most significant of the shifts, senior vice president Orlando Ayala will move from his role overseeing sales to small and midsize companies into a new position overseeing emerging market efforts, reporting to Chief Operating Office Kevin Turner. Eduardo Rosini, who headed Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific unit, will take over Ayala’s role as head of the small and midsize unit, which also oversees Microsoft’s partner network.

Stuff be happening, but I guess if it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any news.

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