Stephen Elop departs Microsoft amid 'engineering re-alignment'
Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder also out as Nadella shapes up Microsoft for Windows 10
Microsoft has announced "changes to its senior leadership team" that have resulted, among other staff reshuffles, in the departure of executive vice president of devices and services - and ex-Nokia CEO - Stephen Elop.
After announcing a series of changes, which include executive vice president Terry Myerson forming a "new team" known as the Windows and Devices Group, Elop has apparently found himself without a defined role, leading to Microsoft producing the following statement:
"As a result of the organisational moves, Stephen Elop, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder will leave Microsoft after a designated transition period."
Tatarinov was vice president of the Microsoft business solutions group and Rudder was excecutive vice president of the ephemerally-named "advanced strategy" department, which was responsible for "cross-company technology initiatives for all Microsoft devices and services", a role arguably being serviced by everybody at Satya Nadella's new Microsoft, as Windows 10 is homogenised across all devices and services as standard.
Tatarinov and Elop's executive profile pages already seem to have been removed from Microsoft's public website.
Microsoft's statement goes on to mention that chief insights officer Mark Penn "has decided to pursue another venture outside Microsoft and will be leaving the company in September", in what it calls an "unrelated" occurrence to the restructure, adding some amount of weight to the suggestion that Elop, Tatarinov and Rudder may have been made redundant as opposed to simply choosing to leave at the same time.
Executive vice president Scott Guthrie will continue leading cloud and enterprise at Microsoft, while Qi Lu will stay at the helm of applications and services.
Stephen Elop became CEO of mobile phone maker Nokia in 2010, becoming the first non-Finnish boss in the company's long history. He received a $6.2m (£4m) signing bonus on top of a $1.4m annual salary, before initiating a reign that cost the company a 92 per cent drop in profits, and an eventual $7.2bn sale of the company to Microsoft in September 2013, which closed in 2014.
In 2011, he sent a memo around Nokia describing the company he led as a "burning platform" from which employees should bravely attempt to recover their market share. Within months, Nokia smartphone sales were crashing as Nokia pre-announced a shift to Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.
The 2013 sale to Microsoft of Nokia's hand-held devices division, the runaway global market leader when Elop joined, was made as a big bond repayment was looming that the company might not have been able to meet.
Transferring his role to Microsoft and becoming executive vice president of devices and services in 2013 netted Elop a further $25.5m.
His future plans are yet to be revealed, but do you think Microsoft got sufficient value out of its $33m man? Let us know your thoughts on the inestimable achievements of Stephen Elop below.