Consumer Windows, it now seems likely, will be making its debut instead on the CE platform. The big winners from today's reorganisation are Jim Allchin, custodian of the Microsoft Windows Empire, and Bob Muglia, heading the Business Productivity Group.
Millennium seems destined to vanish down.
Deep-sixed on the bench of management talent, apparently, is David Cole, who was running Consumer Windows, but has now been promoted to senior VP and made head of the Consumer Services Division, one of seven divisions which will report to Rick Belluzzo. The chopping-off of the commerce bit would seem to suggest that at least some of this function is now seen as more appropriate in Muglia's Business Productivity Group, but Belluzzo still seems to have plenty of other balls to keep in the air. Despite the promotion, Cole's new job doesn't immediately look like an automatic route to stardom. But it's not necessarily the lead-filled sock behind the ear the words make it sound like. Consumer Services will be running in parallel with John DeVaan's TV Services and Platform Business within the Consumer Group, and these two are the most appropriate units for dealing with consumer access devices and the associated software.