Stuart J. Johnston

Microsoft announced Thursday it has hired a new chief information officer (CIO) to replace the one it fired several months ago. The company terminated its last CIO, Stuart Scott, in early November for what it would only describe as “violation of company policies.” Replacing him will be Tony Scott, who left the CIO position at […]

KIRKLAND, WA–As a crucial global standards meeting looms next month regarding the future of Microsoft’s Office XML-based file formats, the company is going all out to make sure it gets its message out. On Wednesday, Microsoft held a briefing near its sprawling corporate campus for select members of the international press in a move […]

In the wake of recent high-level departures from Microsoft’s senior management team, another long-term corporate vice president has also left the company. Last week, Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, announced he will leave the software maker after more than 25 years. Now, it’s come out that Rob Short, corporate vice president of […]

Users tired of waiting for Office 2008 for Mac can finally buy the package Microsoft officials announced Tuesday at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Originally slated for shipment in the second half of 2007, the company delayed its release in early August, saying it had wanted to ensure the product’s quality was up to snuff. […]

Despite earlier statements to the contrary, Microsoft has released the latest prerelease version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) for any Vista user who wants to give it a test drive. Microsoft made the first public test release of Vista SP1 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) available to all users in December. A release candidate […]

Microsoft executives may have been hoping that the company’s troubles with the European Commission (EC) were finally over after it cried “uncle” and dropped all further appeals in October over the EC’s 2004 antitrust ruling. That would have been too easy. Monday, the EC announced it has launched two new probes into the company’s business […]

Microsoft has expanded the preview of its hosted customer relationship management (CRM) offering to more partners and customers. In addition, the company is in the process of bringing out new features for its Office Live Small Business services offerings. Formally known as Dynamics CRM Live, the product is actually a Microsoft-hosted edition of Microsoft Dynamics […]

Jeff Raikes, considered to be the number three executive at Microsoft for more than 25 years, announced Thursday that he will retire come September. Raikes, who is currently president of the Microsoft Business Division (MBD), will be replaced by an executive from outside the company’s ranks — Stephen Elop, who until today was chief operating […]

The executive largely responsible for last summer’s blockbuster $6 billion acquisition of online advertising giant aQuantive, as well as a slew of other deals, is leaving Microsoft. A company spokesperson on Thursday confirmed that Bruce Jaffe, vice president of corporate development, has resigned after 12 years with the software maker. No reason was given for […]

During his final keynote at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Sunday night, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates highlighted what he proudly pointed to as the commercial success of Windows Vista. “I’m pleased to say that we’ve got over 100 million people using Vista now, and that’s a very significant milestone,” Gates told the […]

After a sudden and heated controversy arose last week over blocking older file formats in the latest service pack of Office 2003, Microsoft late Friday all but reversed itself. Along with apologies to both users and other software makers, Microsoft also provided automated tools for restoring access to those older files. The brouhaha began last […]

In his 11th and final keynote speech at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Association Sunday night, Bill Gates said the second “digital decade” is about natural user interfaces. For Microsoft, however, content is also very much a part of its future, as Gates pointed out. For one, NBC will use MSN to deliver NBCOlympics.com content […]