REDMOND, Wash., July 26, 1996 — In recognition of their accomplishments and contributions to their product groups, Microsoft Corp. today announced the promotion of seven product group leaders to vice president. In the applications and content group, the following promotions were announced: Robbie Bach, vice president, marketing, desktop applications division; Lewis Levin, vice president, desktop finance division; and Rick Thompson, vice president, input devices group. Promotions announced in the platforms group were: Brad Chase, vice president, developer relations and marketing, Internet platform and tools division; Moshe Dunie, vice president, engineering general management, desktop business and systems division; Rich Tong, vice president, marketing and training, desktop and business systems division; and David Vaskevitch, vice president, database and transaction products, desktop and business systems division.
“This is a very exciting time at Microsoft, and I am proud to recognize the outstanding commitment of these individuals to the company,”
said Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft.
“Each of these people has played a significant role in Microsoft’s success, and their ongoing efforts will be instrumental as we work toward extending our current and future technologies to the Internet. I am pleased to reward them for their contributions to the respective product groups.”
Promotions in the Applications and Content Group
Robbie Bach, vice president, marketing, desktop applications division
Bach has been with Microsoft since 1988 and has held a variety of positions, including product manager for PC Works, business operations manager for Microsoft Europe, and multiple marketing positions for Microsoft® Excel and other products from the Microsoft Office product line. As vice president of marketing for the desktop applications division, Bach will continue leading the marketing efforts for the Microsoft line of desktop applications, including Office, Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, the PowerPoint® presentation graphics program, Microsoft Publisher, the FrontPage
™
Web authoring and management tool, and Works.
Lewis Levin, vice president, desktop finance division
Since joining Microsoft more than 10 years ago, Levin has been a major influence in the desktop applications groups. Prior to his role as director of marketing for the applications division, Levin held a variety of positions in desktop applications product marketing and was responsible for products including Microsoft Excel for the Windows® and Macintosh® operating systems, Word and PowerPoint. He spent three and a half years as general manager for Microsoft Excel. In his position as general manager of the new desktop finance division, Levin has been working to further Microsoft’s efforts in the area of online banking with products including Microsoft Money, Microsoft Investor and other financial services geared toward the Internet.
Rick Thompson, vice president, input devices group
Rick Thompson joined Microsoft nine years ago as a product manager. He eventually became general manager for the Microsoft Mouse and proceeded to help build Microsoft’s hardware group into a profitable business that has reported a tenfold growth in revenues over nine years. Thompson has demonstrated an outstanding knowledge of the hardware marketplace; under his guidance, the hardware group has developed and marketed category-leading product lines that include the Microsoft Natural® Keyboard, the SideWinder
™
3D Pro joystick and the EasyBall
™
input device for children. As vice president of the input devices group, Thompson will manage its marketing staff and development and design activities.
Promotions in the Platforms Group
Brad Chase, vice president, developer relations and marketing, Internet platform and tools division
Since joining Microsoft in 1987, Chase has held a variety of marketing and management positions at the company. One of his most significant accomplishments was overseeing the worldwide launch of Windows 95 as director of marketing of personal systems. Before that, he served as general manager for the MS-DOS® operating system, where he led the effort for the MS-DOS 5 and 6 upgrades. Chase also led marketing efforts for products such as Microsoft Works and the Microsoft Office family of products. As vice president of developer relations and marketing, Chase’s responsibilities will include overseeing the Internet marketing strategy and furthering Microsoft’s relationship with developers of Internet technologies.
Moshe Dunie, vice president, engineering general management, desktop business and systems division
Dunie joined product management at Microsoft in 1988 and moved on to become director of test for OS/2® . Soon thereafter, he was responsible for release management, quality and performance for the Windows NT® operating system. He has focused on ensuring the product is meeting high levels of quality for customer satisfaction. Since 1993, he has been responsible for a variety of all release management, test, internationalization engineering, performance analysis, worldwide product localization, user assistance and worldwide program management, as well the development of future products in the desktop and business systems division.
Rich Tong, vice president, marketing and training, desktop and business systems division
Tong has managed product marketing and training for the desktop and business systems division since 1993. He directed product planning and marketing for the Windows NT Workstation and Windows NT Server operating systems and the Microsoft BackOffice
™
family including Microsoft SQL Server
™
, SNA Server, Systems Management Server, Mail and Microsoft Exchange Server, Internet Information Server and several new server products to be launched this year. He is also responsible for the courseware development for all desktop and business systems division products. Prior to his current position, Tong was in charge of product marketing for the personal systems group, including the marketing of Windows 3.0 and launches of Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups. He joined Microsoft in 1988 as a product manager for Microsoft Excel and worked on the launches of Microsoft Excel for Windows and OS/2.
David Vaskevitch, vice president, database and transaction products, desktop and business systems division
Vaskevitch has been with Microsoft for nearly 10 years. He began working in the U.S. sales and marketing department of Microsoft and then helped found Microsoft Consulting Services. He joined the product group in 1992 and has led the company in defining a new vision for database-driven applications. Vaskevitch has also been directly responsible for recruiting a world-class set of database architects and developers to Microsoft, and today he is responsible for the development efforts for the company’s database, transaction and application server products.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, PowerPoint, FrontPage, Windows, Natural, SideWinder, EasyBall, MS-DOS, Windows NT and BackOffice are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc.
OS/2 is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corp.
