LONDON, Sept. 26, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Juha Christensen has joined the company as a vice president of sales and marketing in the Mobility Group, based out of London, England. Christensen, previously an executive vice president at Symbian Ltd., will report to Paul Gross, senior vice president for the Mobility Group, to help drive Microsoft’s wireless sales and marketing efforts.
“I am pleased to welcome Juha to Microsoft, where he will join Paul and his team to deliver on our vision of software that empowers people any time, any place and on any device,”
said Steve Ballmer, president and CEO of Microsoft.
“An executive with Juha’s experience and expertise could have gone anywhere. His decision to join Microsoft is testament to the great work we are doing across the company and, in particular, within the Mobility Group.”
“We are making substantial investments in our end-to-end mobility initiatives to enable mobile users to access rich data services and expect Juha to make significant and immediate contributions at Microsoft,”
Gross said.
“I look forward to combining his talent with the rest of the mobility team’s to ultimately provide value to consumers, knowledge workers and carriers with Microsoft’s new mobility vision.”
Most recently, Christensen was an executive vice president of marketing and sales at Symbian Ltd., where he was responsible for global marketing, sales, product management and supplier relationships. Christensen was also responsible for the company’s operations in the United States and the Far East. Before taking on those duties for Symbian, he was vice president of licensing for Psion Software PLC, where he had global responsibility for commercial licensing strategy.
“I am thrilled to join Microsoft in its efforts to turn the mobile Internet into a mainstream industry,”
Christensen said.
“One of the reasons I chose to come to Microsoft is that I see tremendous opportunity in delivering rich software-based solutions to wireless operators, Web portals, content providers and businesses of all sizes to help them create unique value for their customers.”
One of Christensen’s first initiatives will be to engage mobile operators and develop relationships with regional partners at Microsoft’s global Mobility Solution Centers. Christensen will have overall responsibility for Microsoft’s mobile offering, including business development, joint marketing, solutions development and implementation.
Microsoft’s goal is to provide software and services that enable people to access their information any time, any place from any device they choose. Through its broad range of devices, air-link independent wireless data services, and personalized services such as MSN® Mobile, Microsoft is enabling wireless network operators to offer their corporate and consumer customers a range of secure mobile Internet services.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
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