Just a few months ago, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Ted Kummert was headlining the SQL Pass Summit 2012 conference. But as of next week, the head of Microsoft's Data Platform Group (DPG) is leaving the company.

A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that Kummert's last day at Microsoft will be January 31. I've heard from sources he is not going to a competitor and that his new employer could be announcing his appointment some time in the next few weeks.

As head of DPG, which is part of the Server and Tools business at Microsoft, Kummert led product strategy and development of Microsoft's application platform, meaning its database, application servers, cloud services and data programmability and modeling technologies. In this role, he worked with the teams on SQL Server, SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, Windows Azure Data Services, Windows Embedded and Microsoft's business intelligence and big data offerings.

In August of 2012, Microsoft reorganized its Server and Tools group , flattening the corporate hierarchy and organizing the unit more along the lines of Windows and Office. At that time, Embedded was moved under Kummert.

The flattening of the hierarchies will continue with Kummert's decision to move on. Kummert's direct reports are going to be reporting to the head of Server and Tools, President Satya Nadella. That means Quentin Clark, the Corporate Vice President of Program Management; Dave Campbell, the Corporate Vice President of Development; and Jason Wilcox, the Corporate Vice President in charge of Test are now all reporting to Nadella. There are no organizational changes occurring beyond that, the Microsoft spokesperson said.

Kummert joined Microsoft in 1989. During his tenure, he oversaw products including Windows Server Terminal Services, Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration Server, Forefront Server Security for Exchange, Small Business Server, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server and Host Integration Server.

Late last year, another of Microsoft's database experts quietly left the company. Back in November 2012, the spirited Microsoft Technical Fellow Peter Spiro retired from the company.