Dive Brief:

• Microsoft’s CIO Jim DuBois is leaving the company, according to reports from the Puget Sound Business Journal, Geekwire and Business Insider. Microsoft reportedly confirmed the resignation Friday. DuBois has been with Microsoft since 1993 and served as CIO since 2013. 
• Kurt DelBene, the new chief digital officer at Microsoft, will help fill in following DuBois' departure. DelBene’s new role will include leading Microsoft’s digital transformation efforts with focus on corporate strategy, according to the reports. 
• DuBois departure comes amidst a round of layoffs for Microsoft. Last week, the company announced plans to lay off 3,000 staff members as part of its sales reorganization around the cloud. DuBois was on sabbatical and decided to leave Microsoft as part of the layoffs, according to reports. 

Dive Insight:

Though specifics around DuBois' departure are unclear, it coincided with its global sales reorganization around the cloud. Rather than relying solely on its history as a enterprise software giant, in recent years Microsoft has turned to the cloud market and is already one of the dominant providers in the space. Revenue in Microsoft’s cloud group grew by 93% year-over-year last quarter. 

With DuBois departure, Microsoft IT leadership will fall to DelBene, at least in the interim. That's a shift that is occurring across many businesses as corporate focus turns to modernizing for the digital era. For some, the CDO can serve as a replacement for the CIO. But other CIOs, like General Electric's Jim Fowler, thinks CDOs should have more a focus on commercial products. 

While Microsoft is shifting it's product base, more focus is turned toward its own internal digital transformation. As one of the main enterprise IT vendors, Microsoft has to lead by example and illustrate to customers how it can put its own technology into action internally.