Vamos became MD of the Australian operation nearly four years ago, after a stint as CEO of ninemsn, the joint venture between Microsoft and PBL. He was previously MD of Apple's Australian and later Asia-Pacific operations after a 14-year career at IBM.

It's not the first time that a local Microsoft chief has been promoted to a head office position: in 1992, then general manager Daniel Petrie was promoted to VP of Microsoft's workgroup division and moved to Redmond.{moscomment}