The Windows division at Microsoft is about to see a management shakeup according to sources. As early as Wednesday, Microsoft could appoint Steve Sinosky, currently head of the company"s Office division, to oversee Windows development.
The move comes in the wake of yesterday"s announcement regarding Windows Vista being delayed yet again. Vista is the successor to the aging Windows XP, which was expected to be released later this year, but has now been pushed back to early 2007.
Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin currently run the Platform Products and Services division, which includes Windows. Although Allchin has shared leader of the division, he has shifted most of the management and financial responsibilities to Johnson, so he could focus more on technical issues related to Vista.
Sinosky, who joined Microsoft in 1989, has a track record of shipping product updates on time, Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg said. "Clearly things are not going super well with this project and it looks like it"s time to bring a new sheriff to town," he said.
"It was already embarrassing when highly publicized features like WinFS were pulled. It"s clear the whole Longhorn vision has been somewhat scaled down. When it ships, they really need to ship another Windows 95, not another Windows ME," Gartenberg said.