Summary: The Great Microsoft Exodus carries on, particularly in a division that loses obscene amounts of money

MICROSOFT has suffered from some very major departures in recent years. Vice presidents, for instance, are dropping like flies. It's easy to see why. Looking at Microsoft's online business, it loses over $2 billion per year and there is no turnaround foreseen (or proven).

Microsoft's financial situation is worse than most people realise. This is perhaps why Microsoft's online man in China has just decided to leave after 5 years. Except for reports from China, everything else points at Reuters:

—Microsoft: Xiao Chen, MSN China’s VP of sales is leaving at the end of March to start up his own company, Reuters reports. He had been with the Chinese MSN venture since it it launched in 2005.

From BusinessInsider:

Microsoft is losing one of its top sales executives in China, Reuters reports.

Finally, here is the original, which comes in two versions:

Microsoft (MSFT.O) said on Thursday its vice-president of sales for its MSN China joint venture would leave the firm at the end of March to pursue his own start-up.

So, it's not quite over. The Microsoft staff could potentially extend the company's presence (ecosystem) from outside its main operation. We saw that before and it's not an alien concept.

Here is another key man who quits Microsoft because Midori has "failure" written all over it.

It’s been awfully quiet on the Midori front lately. But here’s one bit of news related to Microsoft’s (mostly) secret operating-system incubation project: Midori team Jonathan Shapiro is leaving the company after less than a year.

Midori is just a lot of hype. Does anyone remember "Singularity"? ⬆