Microsoft is reportedly moving some Windows teams from Azure into Panos Panay's team

Microsoft is reportedly reorganizing its Azure team, moving part of the team that relates to Windows engineering under Panos Panay’s Experience and Devices Group. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that the changes were announced today internally and that the movement does not result in any layoffs.

The Windows division experienced a major reorganization back in 2018 with the departure of Terry Myerson, which sent some employees into the Azure teams. The Experiences and Devices division was created back then, led by Rajesh Jha. However, Panos Panay was promoted early this year to lead both the Windows Experience and hardware units merged into one. Panay, still under the leadership of Jha, began leading the ‘Windows and Devices’ group as Chief Device Officer.

Today’s reorganization announcement further moves more of the Windows team under Panay, consolidating the teams that work on the OS and devices under his leadership. Part of the re-org includes moving employees of the Core OS and Intelligent Edge (abbreviated as COSINE) team supposedly to “create more of an end-to-end servicing and shipping experience”. However, parts of the COSINE team relating to engineering – including for Windows Server and Linux – and Windows Core will continue to be led by Azure EVP Jason Zander.

Other changes include the creation of a new Windows, Developers, and Experiences (WDX) Engineering team which is led but Corporate Vice President Jeff Johnson. This team combines the Windows Experiences and Developer Ecosystem Platform groups into one. Corporate Vice President, Michael Fortin, is also joining the Windows and Devices to lead a new team that manages COSINE services and fundamentals.

Today’s reorganizations also bring changes to the Azure division, including the creation of a new Azure Core team. A part of the COSINE group – named Azure COSINE – will focus on Azure Edge. There are also other changes to the leadership in the Azure Edge + Platform teams.

The changes to the Windows teams and consolidation of more OS group members under Panay could signal efforts to have more of the consumer Windows business – including both hardware and software – under the same leadership.