[keithwarren]

I think an interesting side effect of this; his vacating of the Cloud/Enterprise role provides a natural succession up the chain for Scott Guthrie. It also gives Scott (who has more of an effect on the Microsoft dev community than any other person) a direct pipeline and solid personal relationship with the CEO.

[abuqutaita]

If Satya is indeed promoted to CEO, Soma -- not Scott -- will be promoted to EVP.

[keithwarren]

I imagine that Satya would know the people well and where he wants them so we may see some shuffling in the next 6-9 months. Scott is a great public persona and clicks with developers far more than Soma. Soma is stronger operationally and there are going to be other ops critical roles to fill because Satya's elevation to CEO will certainly cause some high level people to leave.

Going to be an interesting next couple years.