8/23/2011
Microsoft’s team of legal-industry specialists whose duty is focused on selling Office applications to big law firms were disbanded by the software giant this week.
Ironically, the team became a victim of its own success and was deemed unnecessary after large law firms already purchase the core Office programs and are starting to depend on Sharepoint more than ever.
People who are familiar with the changes revealed that Microsoft has let go of Industry General Manager Fred Bentfeld, Managing Director Brian Zeve, Sales Director Norm Thomas and Jeff McEachern. Those who were reassigned by the company are industry expert Mark Beckmann and marketer Karin Breedis.
In a statement provided to Law Technology News, Microsoft said, “Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis and deploy our resources to meet business demands.”
The software giant also said, “Microsoft’s legal industry practice is now part of our core enterprise business group and will continue to be supported by our account management, industry partners and product teams. Ultimately, this means Microsoft will continue to provide legal solutions as part of our core offerings. Microsoft is committed to our customers and partners in the professional services and legal industries.”
Beckmann, Zeve and Thomas declined to provide any comment at this time.
According to the CIO of the 353-attorney law firm LeClair Ryan, Bud Phillips, the changes are reasonable. He said, “I could see that being a reasonable thing for Microsoft to do, along with increasing the size of the Dynamics team.”
