After spending some time as Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop helped to get Nokia's Devices and Services division acquired by Microsoft, after which he joined Microsoft as EVP of the Devices Group. Fast-forward a little more than a year and Elop is out.

Microsoft today announced that several of its executives are leaving the company, including Stephen Elop, Kirill Tatarinov, and Eric Rudder. Elop will leave Microsoft after a “transition period” of an undisclosed length. Once Elop is gone, Executive Vice President Terry Myerson will take over a new division known as the Windows and Devices Group.

Elop’s departure is part of an effort to “drive engineering alignment against [Microsoft’s] core ambitions: reinvent productivity and business processes, build the intelligent cloud platform, and create more personal computing.” The move is an interesting one because before becoming Nokia CEO, Elop served several years at Microsoft, only to end up back there after the Microsoft-Nokia deal. Now that Elop is gone, it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of Windows Phone and Lumia with Myerson at the helm.

What do you think of Elop’s departure from Microsoft?