Rick Devenuti, senior vice president of Microsoft Services and IT, is retiring, Microsoft acknowledged Wednesday.

A 19-year Microsoft veteran, Devenuti will stay on through the end of the calendar year. The news was announced internally in an e-mail from Microsoft COO Kevin Turner.

A Microsoft spokesman said Devenuti is leaving the Redmond, Wash., software giant to spend more time with his family. A successor will be named in a few weeks, according to the company.

Devenuti oversaw Microsoft's managed services effort. The company's deal to provide managed services for Energizer Holdings stirred up angst among solution provider partners, who viewed the move as an incursion onto their services turf -- a charge that Devenuti always refuted. He maintained that Microsoft was merely trying to learn lessons by implementing and supporting its wares in heterogeneous environments.

In his e-mail, Turner said that when Devenuti took over Microsoft's enterprise services and IT unit in 2003, he created a three-year plan for the business. "Microsoft is currently in the second year of that plan, achieving record performance in FY06," Turner wrote.

Some VAR partners focusing on enterprise accounts say there has been confusion around Devenuti's role at Microsoft, as well as that of Simon Witts, vice president of the company's Enterprise Partner Group.