Windows Insider team will sit in Cloud + AI Platform / Azure with new reorg

Yesterday Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced a major reorg to the engineering teams within the company, splitting up Windows and giving it a smaller footprint as it looks toward a cloud and AI focused future. Joe Belfiore will be heading up the Windows team with the Experiences and Devices group, which will also encompass Devices, led by Panos Panay, New Experiences, led by Kudo Tsunoda, and Enterprise and Mobility Management, still headed up by Brad Anderson.

However, and as much as many Windows Insiders and OnMSFT.com readers identify with the consumer facing aspects of Windows, the Windows Insider operation will now be led by Jason Zander and the Azure team under Scott Guthrie’s Cloud + AI Platform group, as noted in a tweet this morning by Dona Sarkar:

So….#WindowsInsiders how many of you think we should refer to our new boss @jlzander as JayZ? pic.twitter.com/POEgQgLV1S

— Dona Sarkar (@donasarkar) March 30, 2018

Nadella noted the change in his letter to employees on the reorg yesterday, explaining:

The Windows platform team led by Harv Bhela, Henry Sanders and Michael Fortin will join Jason’s team. Windows platform is already a core part of Azure across both the cloud and edge, and this shift will enable us to accelerate our efforts to build a unified distributed computing infrastructure and application model.

We’re still trying to wrap our heads around this latest reorg, which seems to be something more than just a rearranging of deck chairs. While it makes sense for the Insider Program to follow the Platform team, having consumer experiences and platform separated like this is going to take some getting used to, both inside and outside the company.

In any event, we wish Dona, Jason, Brandon, and the whole Windows Insider team all the best under their new corporate overlords!