Microsoft's Joe Belfiore takes over Internet Explorer app development
Microsoft's Dean Hachamovitch revealed earlier this week that he is switching roles to a new team inside the software giant. Hachamovitch has essentially been the Internet Explorer man at Microsoft for a number of years now …
Context & Ripple Effects
Dean Hachamovitch has been Microsoft's Internet Explorer man for years — back in September 2010 he was fronting the IE9 push to blur Web sites and Web apps (IE9's sites-versus-apps collision) — so his shift off the product he defined is a real handover, not a rotation. The move lands on Joe Belfiore, whose program-management remit already spans Windows Phone, meaning IE app development is being folded into the same organization that ships the operating system's user experience.
Timing matters: Microsoft is mid-CEO-search, with a rumored shortlist of about five external candidates including Alan Mulally and Stephen Elop still unconfirmed, and the company just scrapped its stack-ranking system. A leadership change in one of its most visible legacy franchises reads differently against that churn — and the pickup across TechCrunch, LiveSide, WinBeta and WMPoweruser shows how closely the enthusiast press is watching every org-chart signal.
First-order effects
- Belfiore now owns Internet Explorer app development on top of Windows Phone, giving one executive authority over both the phone UX and the browser built into it.
- Hachamovitch exits the role he has held through the IE9 and IE10 cycles for an unnamed new team inside Microsoft.
Second-order effects
- IE's roadmap cadence is likely to sync with the Windows and Windows Phone release rhythm rather than running on its own schedule, changing how the team prioritizes features across desktop and mobile.
- Rival browsers — Chrome and Firefox foremost — face a reorganized Microsoft browser group at exactly the moment the company's broader direction is unsettled by the CEO search.
Third-order effects
- If browsers continue to be managed inside OS organizations rather than as standalone products, Microsoft's browser strategy becomes inseparable from its platform strategy — the pattern that would make any future rebranding or rebuild of IE an executive-level call.
- A generation of browser-specific leadership like Hachamovitch's gives way to platform-general managers, concentrating decisions about the open web's default surfaces inside OS teams.
The trend: Browser development is being consolidated under operating-system leadership at Microsoft, trading dedicated browser stewardship for integrated platform control during a period of company-wide transition.