Two senior Microsoft executives have been fired after an internal investigation into the use of corporate resources.

"We can confirm that as the result of an investigation, Eric Hadley and Sean Carver's employment with Microsoft has been terminated for violation of company policies related to mismanagement of company assets and vendor procurement," the company said in a statement.

Hadley was general manager of worldwide marketing for Redmond's search engine Bing, and Carver was Bing's director of Brand Entertainment. Microsoft declined to comment further on specific charges leveled against the pair, and Hadley's Twitter feed has also been silent on the topic.

Hadley has had been a key player in getting the Bing engine into the public eye, and reportedly built his strategy around aiming the search engine at consumers, rather than pushing search on technical grounds, as did Google. He joined Microsoft from Yahoo!, organized Redmond's sponsorship of the memoir of rapper Jay-Z (husband of R&B star Beyoncé), and most recently set up a co-sponsorship deal with Spotify at the SXSW technology conference.

Carver was also heavily involved in promoting Bing. He was also executive producer of a short film, Para Fuera, about noted heart surgeon Dr. Richard J. Bing, which was accepted by the Sundance film festival in 2010. A Seattle local, Carver joined Microsoft's MSN division in 2003. ®