爱思英语编者按：一连串的传说之后，MicrosoftCEO史蒂夫鲍尔默终于在7月12日宣布了Microsoft的重组计划。这份旨在提升Microsoft灵活性与反应速度的计划，重新划分了Microsoft高官们的权利范围，但能否就此破解Microsoft缺席移动年代的深层危机问题，仍然是个未知数。

重组计划

过去两周，Microsoft马上大规模重组的消息被传得沸沸扬扬。终于在7月12日，由鲍尔默亲自宣布了这一酝酿多时的重组计划。假如你有空闲看看鲍尔默发给职员的长篇内部备忘录，就会发现，这肯定是Microsoft历史上规模最为庞大的一次重组计划。

依据最新的重组计划，Microsoft将原有些8个业务部门简化为4个部门，分别为：操作系统部门、应用和服务部门、云计算和企业部门，与设施和工作室部门。

具体而言：操作系统部门由此前Windows Phone工程开发主管特里迈尔森负责，该部门对Microsoft所有主要操作系统，包含Windows、Windows Phone，与Xbox的软件进行了整理；

新的设施及工作室部门负责人是原来的Windows部门负责任人朱莉拉尔森-格林，该部门将包含Xbox硬件、Surface系列平板电脑商品、硬件配件和游戏等业务；

作为新的云计算和企业部门负责人，塞亚纳德拉将负责Microsoft的数据中心互联网和在线服务业务、与Windows Azure云计算平台；

应用和服务部门则由原Microsoft在线服务业务主管陆奇领导，具体业务主要包含效率、通信、搜索与其他信息类别的应用程序和服务，包含Office、企业社交平台Yammer、Skype和必应搜索等。

Microsoft
Reorganise and reshuffle

FOR some time, Steve Ballmer, Microsofts chief executive, has been saying that the software giant needs to think of itself as a devices and services company. On July 11th he set out in an e-mail to staff and a lengthy memo, both published on the companys website, what this means for Microsofts internal organisation. Its businesses have been regrouped and just about all its senior managers reshuffled. Quite what it might mean for shareholders and for the eventual succession to Mr Ballmer is, however, not yet evident.

Hitherto Microsoft has had five largely separate divisions. The Windows division houses the operating system in most of the worlds PCs and these days a few of its smartphones and tablets too . Alongside this are the server and tools division ; online services , business and entertainment and devices, including the Xbox games console .

Mr Ballmer seems to have decided that this system has lacked co-ordination. We are rallying behind a single strategy as one company, he wrote to his staff, not a collection of divisional strategies. That is what Microsoft has had until now. The Windows division, for example, was notorious for ploughing its own furrowone reason, some think, for the departure of Steven Sinofsky, its head, late last year. The structure has not served Microsoft well as the world has moved from deskTOP and lapTOP personal computers, where the company made its money, into mobile devices, where it has struggled, and the cloud. Some technologies, such as operating systems and cloud infrastructure, have been spread across divisions. We will see our product line holistically, Mr Ballmer wrote, not as a set of islands.

So the new arrangement has a more horizontal look, with four engineering groups organised on functional lines. All the operating systems, whether for PCs, mobile devices or the cloud, will be in one group. Devices will be in another. A third, applications, covers core technologies in search and productivity . And the cloud group will look after data centres, databases and the needs of big companies.

No one knows whether the realigned Microsoft will be a nimbler Microsoft until results start to flow. Investors will want to be able, as far as they can, to compare the old and the newfor instance, on the so far disappointing uptake of Windows 8, the newish operating system for PCs, tablets and smartphones. They may like a little more clarity on something else, too: who might succeed Mr Ballmer, especially if the reorganisation is a flop. On that, despite all the moves among Microsofts TOP brass no one is any the wiser.