Summary: Flight Simulator development/developers possibly reborn; aQuantive executive joins AdReady while Razorfish is sold; Microsoft-loaded Juniper serves Windows

OTHER than major departures, we do strive to keep track of Microsoft influence on the move. A few weeks ago we wrote about FASA and Bungie, reminding ourselves of what Microsoft did to Ensemble Studios and Flight Simulator. It turns out that developers of Flight Simulator start their own company.

Microsoft has the ability to drive CEOs of companies that it acquires out of the business. Tellme is one example because Tellme's founder quit Microsoft a few months ago and aQuantive would be another example of an "exodus".

Microsoft Nick writes about the finalisation of Microsoft's goodbye to 2,000+ of its employees that came from aQuantive. It is part of the ongoing layoffs that are greater in size than what Microsoft publicly reports.

One of the fugitives of aQuantive is now becoming the President and COO of AdReady.

He was previously President of Atlas, an online advertising technology provider and operating unit of aQuantive, Inc. (acquired by Microsoft). In this role, Siebrecht helped build Atlas from the ground floor into a leading advertising technology provider, serving many of the largest and most sophisticated advertisers, agencies, and publishers globally across the online advertising industry.

He wasn't at Microsoft long enough to become too involved, so there is probably not much risk that AdReady will prioritise Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft has just recruited a vice president from Motorola, which is actually in the process of dumping Windows Mobile and focusing mostly on Linux/Android.

Then there's Juniper, which recently added Microsoft executives to its leadership (including CEO position) [1, 2, 3]. Here is Juniper's new press release about defending Windows. ⬆