CS and the City

News on the Microsoft front today is Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online business group, getting the boot. His replacement: this guy. His name is Brian McAndrews. He’s the former CEO of aQuantive, that big ad agency MS bought months ago.

Brian has a Forbes.com profile, no Wikipedia page.

I cannot imagine how a company full of such delightful and intelligent folk can be led by management so disconnected with reality. I’m a generous guy, so I’ll wave the consulting fee this one time.

Microsoft, the reason your online division isn’t profitable is because your products are mediocre on a good day and no one is interested in using them, and not because you don’t have enough ads on them already. Putting an ad executive at the top of the division is about the worst thing you could possibly do.

Now those people protesting the merger on Flickr have something to be genuinely concerned about.