News

EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft Taps Tatarinov for Top MBS Slot

• By Barbara Darrow
• 06/29/2007

Tatarinov's ascension will doubtless surprise many Microsoft Business Solutions partners who had anticipated that MBS long-timer, and Microsoft corporate vice president Tami Reller, would get this job. Reller joined Microsoft by way of that company's acquisition of Great Plains Software six years ago. She has been a familiar face to MBS partners ever since. Several partners lobbied Microsoft to name her to the position, joking about printing up "Vote For Tami" buttons.

Tatarinov, a corporate vice president, came to Microsoft in 2002 from BMC Software, where he was senior vice president and chief technology officer. He had cofounded and served as chief architect and head of R&D for Patrol Software Pty. Ltd., which was the source of BMC's PATROL family of products.

The job opened up last March, with the unexpected exit of new MBS head Satya Nadella to corporate vice president of the newly formed Search & Advertising Platform Group (click here to read more). At that time, Microsoft Business Division president Jeff Raikes said he and Reller would co-lead a search team for the next MBS chief.

Reller will aid Tatarinov in the transition, sources said. The news surfaces just two weeks before Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference that kicks off in Denver on July 10.

Some partner sources say MBS, with its roots in Great Plains and then Navision, is losing key players, most notably Doug Burgum, who retired this year.

Tatarinov, who grew up in Moscow, Russia, most recently ran Microsoft's Management and Solutions Division. He joins MBS as Microsoft is moving to deepen the integration between the Dynamics products and Microsoft's traditional infrastructure products.

Brad Anderson will serve as the interim leader for MSD as Microsoft searches for a replacement for Tatarinov, a Microsoft spokesman said in a statement. Anderson has been at Microsoft for four years and was at Novell for 12 years before that.