I reported over the weekend that Hugh Crean, general manager of Bing Travel, is leaving the company, effective October 23.
Now, it turns out, that Jay Bartot , chief principal engineer at Bing Travel, will be following Crean out the door a few weeks later, in mid-November.
Bartot, who arrived at Bing Travel's predecessor brand, Farecast, in November 2003 when it was still a cloak-and-dagger affair, undoubtedly did a lot of the technological heavy lifting at Farecast and played a key role in the integration of Farecast into Microsoft's Bing.
Bing Travel won't stop bing-ing with Crean and Bartot moving on to the next challenge. I have to believe there are more than a few capable people at Microsoft who can step up to the plate in their absence.
The duo's exits symbolize the fact that Bing Travel, acquired by Microsoft when it was known as Farecast in 2008, is moving onto its next stage within Microsoft's search portfolio.
The question now is whether Bing Travel can up the ante with much of the original team missing in action.
Can anyone make a prediction on that in the next seven days with 75% confidence?