As we suspected earlier this morning, Microsoft has made its reorganization official. CEO Steve Ballmer has sent an email to staff titled “One Microsoft,” through which he details the recent way the business would be operated.

The company should be organized right into a collection of divisions: Engineering, Marketing, Business Development and Evangelism, Advanced Strategy and Research, Finance, HR, Legal, and Operations. Within engineering (the house of Xbox One), there’ll be four units: Operating Systems, Applications and Services, Cloud and Enterprise, and Devices and Studios.

Ballmer’s vision for a monolithic Microsoft has significant implications for the Xbox One creation, that’s now split in half. Terry Myerson, formerly head of Windows Phone, will head the Operating System unit, such as the Xbox One’s core functions. Following Don Mattrick’s departure, Julie Larson-Green is now in control of hardware (Devices and Studios), which incorporates the Xbox One’s tangible components. Additionally, this new organization puts Skype head Tony Bates in command of developer relations and evangelism, that may have impact for the Xbox One at the post-launch software side. 

Ballmer’s email stresses collaboration as a key focus of the reorganization. “Improving our performance has three big dimensions: focusing the entire company on a single strategy, improving our capability in all disciplines and engineering/technology areas, and dealing including more collaboration and agility around our common goals,” Ballmer told employees. For those intently watching the Xbox One’s communication issues, one passage might offer some hope. “We’re going to reshape how we interact with our customers, developers and key innovation partners, delivering a more coherent message and family of product offerings,” Ballmer offers. 

Other implications include a path toward a brand new financial reporting structure that may now not get away different business units. This may make it much harder for investors to discern what products are underperforming. As with every change in financial reporting, comparison becomes difficult inside the periods immediately following a shift.

Microsoft may be holding a town hall meeting at 10 am Pacific for workers. We’ve reached out to the corporate for comment. The whole transcript of Ballmer’s email to staff are located here.

[Source: All Things D]

Our Take
I am skeptical about how this can help the Xbox One come back on its feet. The reorganization may be good for Microsoft as an entire, but splitting the finalization of the Xbox One across two engineering divisions with two different, new leaders seems ill advised. Once the console is launched, Myerson’s group shall be accountable for refining the user experience, which likely won’t require the identical level of interactivity with the hardware team.

We’re wanting to hear from Larson-Green about her plans for the Xbox One launch, how she’ll be using existing staff like Phil Spencer, and the way she and Myerson will navigate the launch with two separate divisions handling crucial functions.