Microsoft Names New Office Software Manager

Microsoft has tapped longtime executive Julie Larson-Green to manage the company's Office applications business.

Larson-Green, currently serving as chief experience officer for Microsoft's services group, will retain that post, but will now also manage the Office client applications and services team.

Corporate Vice President Kirk Koenigsbauer, who currently holds that job, is moving to a new job within the Applications and Services Group marketing operation overseen by Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela.

[Related: Microsoft's Cloud Business Booms, As Its Windows And Phone Business Struggle]

The management shifts, first reported in a ReCode story, were confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson who said the changes are effective Tuesday.

Office has long been one of Microsoft's cash cows. But the product has been in transition as more customers shift to Office 365, the cloud version of the application suite. Microsoft has also been shifting to an annual subscription model instead of having customers purchase the software.

In reporting its first fiscal quarter financial results last week, Microsoft said revenue from the Productivity and Business Processes business segment, of which Office is part, was down 3 percent, to $6.3 billion. But Microsoft blamed that decline on currency fluctuations: In constant currency, sales were up 4 percent. Office commercial products and cloud services revenue grew 5 percent in constant currency.

Larson-Green has been with Microsoft since 1993, when she started as a Visual C++ program manager, according to her LinkedIn page. Before her current chief experience officer job, she served as executive vice president of Microsoft's Windows Division and executive vice president of the vendor's Devices and Studios Group.

PUBLISHED OCT. 27, 2015