January 14, 2010, 3:10 PM — Microsoft Windows executive Bill Veghte is leaving the company not long after one of his peers was chosen to run the Windows division.
Veghte, who serves as senior vice president of Windows, has been with Microsoft for 19 years. He’ll leave the company at the end of the month, according to a note that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees. The letter is posted on the company’s Web site.
Ballmer said that after holding a variety of roles at Microsoft, Veghte has decided he wants to lead a company “in a more end-to-end fashion.”
As a vice president in the Windows group, Veghte helped launch Windows 7. He worked alongside Steven Sinofsky, who was vice president of the Windows engineering group until he was promoted in July to the new position of president of the Windows division.
When Sinofsky was promoted, Microsoft said that Veghte would move into a new leadership role to be announced at the end of last year. At the time, Directions On Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff said that often at Microsoft such delays in repositioning executives means that the person might soon be leaving the company. He wondered if Veghte had hoped for the role at the head of the Windows division that Sinofsky was awarded.
Ballmer praised Veghte's performance, saying that he was "instrumental in the delivery and launch of Windows 7, helping us reenergize the Windows franchise."
