**Editor’s Note:


Click here

to see which channel people were on the move in February and March.**

Friday marked the first day on the job at Microsoft for former Oracle channel exec Judson Althoff.

Althoff has joined Microsoft as president of North America sales and marketing and as a company corporate vice president. His position does not fall within the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft, according to Redmond Channel Partner; however, his role does involve what the publication called “significant interaction” with the channel. Resellers comprise 95 percent of Microsoft’s sales, the publication noted.

Althoff’s move is a big coup for Microsoft. He spent 14 years at Oracle, serving as senior vice president of worldwide alliances and channels for the past few. Overall, he holds about two decades of experience in the communications industry, on both the hardware and software sides, and in the sales, marketing and channel worlds. All of this presumably will help Microsoft expand its hardware line and better compete in the quickly changing mobility sector, where it competes against Apple, Google, Nokia and BlackBerry.

Althoff reports to COO Kevin Turner. He fills the vacancy left by Robert Youngjohns, who resigned last September to lead HP’s Autonomy unit.