Sinofsky: I Didn't Try to Gain Control of Windows Phone

Former Windows chief Steven Sinofsky, who from Microsoft earlier this week, is denying that he left after failing to bring the Windows Phone division under his control.

Sinofsky made his declaration in the comments section of former Microsoft engineer Hal Berenson's blog, who wrote about Sinofsky's departure on Tuesday. In that post, Berenson suggested that Sinofsky "had apparently lost recent battles to bring both Windows Phone and the Developer Division under his control."

Sinofsky, however, said that was not the case.

"I never initiated any discussions to bring together the organizations/products you describe and no one ever approached me to manage them as part of Windows 7 or 8," Sinofsky wrote.

"If we had worked together you would know that historically, very few things moved into teams I managed," Sinofsky continued.

If that did happen, he said, "I usually pushed back hard looking for a cross-group way to achieve the goal (in other words, decide open issues rather than force an org change to subsequently decide something). It is far better to collaborate with the org in place and avoid the disruption unless it is on a product cycle boundary and far better to plan and execute together than just organize together."

Sinofsky in July 2009 after more than a decade contributing to and leading the development of Microsoft's Office products. He was also heavily involved in recruiting talent to Redmond over the years.

"It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company," Sinofsky said in a Monday statement.

Since the announcement, there has been a lot of talk about why Sinofsky decided to leave and whether he made the decision to depart or was forced out. In his post, Berenson said that a friend had notified him months ago that Sinofsky would leave after the Oct. 26 release of Windows 8. Still, the announcement was abrupt and did not appear to be a well-orchestrated corporate transition. That, Berenson said, "is just one more indication that this move was probably an outgrowth of conflict."