Microsoft CEO Nadella names his Xbox and Cloud OVERLORDS

New Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made two important albeit expected appointments to his executive team.

The big cheese announced on Monday that his company will remove the "interim" from Scott Guthrie's role as interim executive vice-president of cloud and enterprise. Phil Spencer, the boss of in-house games developer Microsoft Studios, has been promoted to oversee the whole Xbox, Xbox Live and Microsoft Studios shebang. As Head of Xbox, he will report to operating systems executive vice-president Terry Myerson.

The move follows the departure of the games console's chief product officer Marc Whitten, who left to take an executive position at Sonos in March, and its previous head Don Mattrick in July last year.

"Combining all our software, gaming and content assets across the Xbox team under a single leader and aligning with the (Operating Systems Group) team will help ensure we continue to do great work across the Xbox business, and bring more of the magic of Xbox to all form factors, including tablets, PCs and phones," Nadella said of the promotions.

Guthrie, said to be "a geek's geek", was made an interim veep of the cash-flush big-biz wing in February, although it's understood galvanizing that role was always on the cards.

Guthrie was elevated to lead Redmond's cloud and enterprise division when Nadella vacated the position in his rise to the CEO office, replacing long-time CEO Steve Ballmer last month.

Meanwhile, the company has decided to bestow a new title upon former Nokia boss Stephen Elop following the acquisition of the phone maker: Elop will report directly to Nadella as executive VP of the Microsoft Devices Group, and will lead a team of former Nokia employees into the Microsoft mobility operation. Nadella said that the Nokia gobble is on track to formally close at the end of April.

"The mobile capabilities, hardware design expertise, and world-class manufacturing and supply chain operations they bring will help us drive innovations in devices to delight our customers," Nadella said of the acquisition.

"Stephen will partner closely with Phil and Terry on Xbox and will bring together many of the top leaders from his existing Nokia Devices and Services organization as well as the current leaders of the Devices and Studios team." ®