Microsoft Mobile Director Melson to be the biggest winner

Trie Melsen, head of the 40-year-old Microsoft Mobile Engineering Department

After Microsoft's massive restructuring, Trie Melsen Terry Myerson, the 40-Year-old head of mobile engineering at Microsoft, appears to be the biggest winner, Theverge, who now runs the most profitable and important department in four of Microsoft's new business units, the US technology blog said recently. But at the same time, because of the challenges Microsoft faces in the mobile sector, Melson's business will have to do its best in Windows. It is no exaggeration to say that his fate has been connected with Windows.

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"Iron cage Race"

In December 2008, Microsoft convened an emergency meeting. It was reported that the participants dubbed the Meeting "The Iron Cage race". The younger Trie Melsen (Terry Myerson) has just been promoted to the head of Microsoft's mobile Engineering department. At the time, Microsoft's Mobile Engineering Department was responsible for Windows Mobile, an outdated and unfriendly mobile operating system that Microsoft released as early as 2003.

Melson is the convenor of this emergency meeting. On the conference table, there is a prototype of a new Windows Mobile phone. At that time, the iphone has taken up almost everyone's mind-the smartphone, launched by Apple in 2007, has swept through the handset market. Melson to find out whether Windows Mobile still has code that is worth keeping, he said, until the answer to the question was found, and no one was allowed to leave the conference room.

7 hours later, Melson's team finally reached a consensus: to overthrow Windows Mobile to rebuild. Starting from scratch to create a new mobile operating system, this is not a easy decision to make, although Google was the first step to launch the Android operating system, but in the end it became one of Melson's biggest achievements. The revamped Windows Phone design is sophisticated, and the operating system is widely praised even if sales of related products are weak.

Less than two years after the "Iron cage race", Melson was promoted to the head of Microsoft's entire Windows Phone department. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, Ballmer in an internal memo that Melson "led the engineering team to work hard and played an important and remarkable role in the development of Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 7.5." Windows phone has unlimited potential. ”

Successive promotions

Melson's career is a step in a year. Microsoft announced this week that Melson, 40, will be in charge of the company's "Operating system engineering"-the most lucrative and important sector in the four new technology divisions that Microsoft has restructured.

This department is actually the Windows System Department, and this operating system has contributed most of the revenue to Microsoft, now running on the PC, but also support mobile phones, tablets, Xbox and other platforms. In other words, Windows is the backbone of all Microsoft business.

Melson to win over the Battle of Zhu Li Larsen Green, the head of the Windows Engineering Department, to surprise many. After the reorganization of Microsoft, Larson-Green will be responsible for the company's hardware business, this person is good at communication, full of self-confidence, and Melson low-key, unwilling to become the focus of the media and do not want to deal with.

On a conference call after Microsoft announced its business reorganization, The Verge website reporter raised a more strident question about how Melson and Larson-Green could work together to advance Microsoft's hardware and software business. After hearing the reporter's question, Julie immediately answered, and Melson deliberately avoided, until the reporter shouted out the name, he gave a plausible answer, said what innovation from Microsoft partners.

In addition, Melson seems to have a lack of grace, he called Android "a Mess", and also suspected that Apple "is out of the right track, and iOS also become boring." "Later, in an interview with Wired magazine, Melson attacked rivals, calling the Android platform" confusing "," confusing "and calling Apple a" dictator ".

The problem is that Windows phone, while performing well, is not a popular operating system. Windows Phone device sales lag far behind the iphone and Android devices; Windows phone has a relatively small number of applications, now about 160,000, and iOS and Android have more than 800,000 applications; The Windows phone platform has also been criticized for slow upgrades. Although Melson has been at the helm for two years, Windows Phone is still not fully releasing its "huge potential", as Ballmer had hoped.

Young

Melson never thought of working at Microsoft one day. He studied at Duke University's 31 liberal arts colleges, but only one semester later went to the mechanical engineering major. During his school years, he worked in the cafeteria, working part-time at the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States. After graduating from college, Melson a job at a computer graphics company and later resigned from the job to create his own company, Interse Corporation, because of his interest in the Internet.

Interse's business was initially to help people build sites, and later involved in data mining software development. Only two years after its inception, Interse attracted the attention of Bill Gates. 1997, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Interse, but neither side disclosed the purchase price. But public records show that the 24-Year-old Melson gained about $16.5 million worth of shares.

After joining Microsoft, Melson in "Server Application Department internet Service Business Unit", participated in the development of site server, Windows Management instrumentation and BizTalk products. He was promoted to the head of the Microsoft Exchange Development team in 2001 and was in charge of the team for 8 years.

In 2009, Andy Lees, head of Microsoft's mobile division, Andy Lis from the Exchange team to Melson to help revive the mobile sector to eliminate the iphone threat. During this period, Melson recruited a number of important assistants, such as Joe Belflore, the current Windows Phone Manager, who is responsible for the design of the new Windows Phone. Chow Belfellore.

Product Synergy

Melson, the head of Microsoft's mobile division, also has another major feat that may have laid the groundwork for his promotion. Although Microsoft has successfully built a performance-focused mobile operating system, it suffers from no killer phone products. In addition, mobile operators are aggressively selling Apple and Samsung handsets to their users, making Microsoft's products unpopular.

Chow Harrow Jo Harlow, executive vice president of Nokia's Smart Devices division, also graduated from Duke, so she has a close relationship with Melson. Melson played an important role in the company's ability to reach a deal with Nokia on mobile platforms. Thanks to this cooperation agreement, Nokia has become Microsoft's most intimate partner in the mobile sector. Team members from two companies even watched the beautiful scenery in Finland.

Melson's brother also works at Microsoft. However, there are still many unknowns about whether Melson can climb the peak again. The poor public image and the partial defeat of Windows Phone may have made it difficult for him to achieve his ultimate dream. According to Microsoft's message to the outside world last week, Microsoft's top priority is to promote synergy among all Windows products. But practice has proved that the original product integration is a major challenge, some developers even believe that this may eventually become an empty word.

It is widely believed that Melson's predecessor, Liz, has been completely out of the world at Microsoft. Given the challenges Microsoft is facing and the adjustment period after the massive restructuring, Melson must go all out to avoid a repeat of the mistakes.