Microsoft's Smoot Takes On New SharePoint Role

Jones is out; Smoot is in—as head of Microsoft’s OneDrive and SharePoint businesses, that is.

ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that Chris Jones, who has been with Microsoft since 1991, will be taking on a new job in Microsoft's Applications and Services Group (ASG) later this year. Phil Smoot will transition into Jones’ soon-to-be-old position. Foley noted in her article that Smoot most recently was vice president of engineering for the combined OneDrive/SharePoint team, and before that was part of Microsoft’s Hotmail and Azure Storage businesses.

It will be interesting to see what role Smoot plays as we await big changes to both the online and on-premises versions of SharePoint. It will also be interesting to see the ways in which Microsoft intertwines OneDrive and SharePoint as Microsoft continues to beef up OneDrive for business use.

Right now it's all theoretical, as we wait out a look at SharePoint 2016.

If you could meet with Smoot about SharePoint and OneDrive, what would you say? What features would you request? What would you suggest never see the light of day again? Please let us know in the comments section below.