Microsoft brain drain to Google continues

Stan Beer
Friday, 30 June 2006 19:13

IT Industry - Strategy

The past week has not been a good one for Microsoft as far as senior staff is concerned. First the head marketing honcho for Windows Live martin Taylor either walked or got the boot - no-one really knows which. Now, one of the software company's leading evangelists is leaving to smell the daisies for a year before defecting to arch-nemesis Google. Both senior staffers were long termers.

Vic Gundotra, general manager for platform evangelism, had been with Microsoft for 15 years. He has accepted a position at Google, which is prepared to wait for a full year for him to take up his position. That's the length of time required for him to fulfil his one year non competition obligation.

Gundotra is not the first Google defection of course. The departure of the head of Microsoft China Kai-Fu Lee sparked legal action, while engineer Mark Lucovsky reportedly was responsible for a legendary Ballmer chair throwing tantrum.

While there is some conjecture that the departure of both Taylor and Gundotra is a case of incoming chief software architect Ray Ozzie cleaning house in the wake of Bill Gate's retirement, it would seem to be a strange strategy to get rid of the most talented people in the growth technology areas. Obviously Google seems to believe they're talented anyway.

Just to play devil's advocate, in the wake of the departure of Steve Ballmer's hand-picked protege Taylor, his rage at the departure of some of his most talented lieutenants and the less than inspiring performance of Microsoft under his command, how secure is the CEO's position at the world's largest software company?