New captain from the Netherlands

Captain on the bridge! Microsoft Corporation today announced the promotion of Michel van der Bel from head of Microsoft Holland to vice president for the public sector for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Van der Bel has been an old Microsofty since 1999 and replaces Jan Muehlfeit, who was earlier promoted to EMEA corporate and government strategy vice president.

Van der Bel will report to Microsoft worldwide public sector corporate vice president Gerri Elliott. Speculation has it that Microsoft brass wanted to shuffle things around a little in their public sector group, as Microsoft has felt additional pressure from open-source competitors in the government IT market. For this sphere, Microsoft hawks the Connected Government Framework, a program that includes identity management, customer relationship management, case management, and document and forms management.