Lots of no-shows at Microsoft conference

By

Posted 7:50AM on Friday, April 12, 2002

SEATTLE - Mexican President Vicente Fox can't leave his country, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev unexpectedly must return to his, and Microsoft President Rick Belluzzo quit. All of which means Microsoft's Government Leaders Conference, scheduled to begin Monday, will be lacking a few leaders. Fox and Gorbachev were touted as the event's star speakers, and Belluzzo was to be the event's host. The Mexican Senate, fed up with the number of foreign trips Fox has taken, voted this week to bar him from attending. He still plans to speak by a live video link. Gorbachev canceled because he needs to deal with legal challenges to his United Social Democratic Party in Russia, said Anthony Jones, executive director of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America. "We are very upset because we were looking forward to having him here and Gorbachev himself was actually looking forward to meeting everybody," Jones said. Belluzzo announced his resignation unexpectedly last week after just more than a year on the job. He'll still be with the company until September, but Microsoft wanted a host who will be with the company for the long-term, said Jonathan Murray, Microsoft's vice president of global accounts and executive sales. Murray is now scheduled to be the host of the conference, along with retired Microsoft President Bob Herbold, who was replaced by Belluzzo last year, but stayed on as a political consultant. Murray called Gorbachev's cancelation "very disappointing." Greg DeMichillie, a senior analyst with Directions on Microsoft, an independent company that tracks Microsoft, said Belluzzo's cancelation would probably be awkward for Microsoft but would cause no long-term damage to the company's reputation. That Belluzzo was scheduled to be the host of the high-profile event offered further proof that his resignation "came about more quickly than Microsoft would otherwise would like to admit," DeMichillie said. Microsoft has said the resignation was long in the works and part of a broader plan to restructure the company. Several other government officials still plan to attend, including U.N. Special Representative Jose Maria Figueres and the Bush administration's associate director for information technology and e-government, Mark Forman. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates also will attend. Now in its fifth year, the government conference has helped Microsoft build international business and score lucrative government technology contracts. At last year's conference, the British government announced plans to conduct much of its business online by 2005 using Microsoft technology.