Microsoft CIO bails out to pursue 'personal projects'

Microsoft's Chief Information Officer, Tony Scott, has left the company.

Microserfs were reportedly told he'd moved on last week, but news reached the outside world when Scott's LinkedIn profile primary reported he had become the “former CIO” at Microsoft.

Microsoft has since confirmed Scott's exit, telling GeekWire “Tony Scott decided to depart Microsoft to focus on personal projects. While at Microsoft, Tony was a strong IT leader passionate about taking Microsoft’s technology to the next level and using our experiences and learnings to help customers and partners. We thank Tony for his contributions and wish him well.”

When Microsoft hired Scott back in January 2008, a canned statement said he “will manage Microsoft’s 4,000-person global information technology organization that manages critical technology systems supporting the company’s worldwide sales, marketing and services efforts, as well as enterprise systems and applications for all corporate processes.”

This MSDN profile page says “Scott champions IT as a value-added business for Microsoft and works with all the company's groups to identify opportunities, structure IT solutions and deliver measurable returns to the business.

Scott seems not to have changed his role during his five-and-a-bit years as a Redmondian, so between the constancy as CIO and the descriptions above, one would be drawing a long bow to link his departure to any of the big issues – Windows 8 ambivalence, low mobile device market share, haemorrhaging money online – Microsoft faces at this time.

Some might say any departures from the C-suite at Microsoft aren't a good look because of those challenges. Others may respond with five-and-a-bit years in a job being a pretty decent innings and that reading more into it than a desire to move on to a new challenge could be just a bit paranoid.

GeekWire says Jim Dubois will act as CIO until a replacement is appointed. ®