Yusuf Mehdi, who reportedly is the ” longest-running executive in Microsoft’s Online Services Division,” (which houses Bing) is heading over to the company’s Xbox division. Reasons for the shift aren’t entirely clear. But Mehdi is a key executive for “OSD” and was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of Bing.
According to the internal memo obtained by Geekwire, Mehdi and his tenure are described as follows:
Yusuf has been involved with leading Microsoft Online Services businesses longer than anyone else on the OSD LT, and has been a pivotal leader at critical milestones of our division’s journey from the early days of MSN, to the original MSN and Live Search products, to the launch of Bing and the consummation of key strategic deals for OSD and MS, including Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and Nokia. Most importantly, he has built a world class marketing, business development, strategy, and product management organization that has made incredible contributions to the success of OSD and Microsoft.
Mehdi’s direct reports will now report directly to Qi Lu, (the former Yahoo executive) who is president of the Online Services Division. While Bing has continued to gain market share, OSD has continued to loose money and faces increasing pressure to “stop the bleeding.” The following chart shows the quarter over quarter loses since 2007.
Source: Microsoft/CNN Money
Related Topics: Ask: Video | Channel: Video | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Employees
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