Two longtime Microsoft Entertainment and Devices separation directors are send-off the company in a move that will provide CEO Steve Ballmer more manage in excess of the group.

President of the Entertainment and Devices division will leave later on this year after several years at Microsoft. He won't be restoring. In its place, the heads of the mobile communications trade and the interactive entertainment business together parts of the separation will report straight to Ballmer starting July 1. The separation is in charge for Microsoft user products with Windows Phone 7, Xbox, Zune and Project Natal, the company's latest gaming offering.

The timing of such a high-level leaving is strange; representative that leaders might not have been happy with the division's presentation, said Matt Rosoff, a forecaster with Directions on Microsoft.

"I would have consideration that if Microsoft was leaving to shake up the division, it would have at least agreed the present product lineup a probability to succeed or fail," he said. Windows Phone 7 and the Kin phones have only just launched and Natal is schedule to come out afterward this year.

"It's probable that older leadership was not pleased with some of the presentation in that area, mainly mobile," he said.