In his new role as COO, Ayala will oversee sales, services, marketing and operations for both groups. Ayala was also charged with making sure Microsoft's 35,000 worldwide partners are working in sync, driving sales and marketing efforts in the SMB (small and midsize business) sector—a necessary task given Microsoft's increasingly fractured channel relations, coupled with the fact that the company sells its software specifically through alliance partners. Hurwitz said this move, too, should strengthen Business Solutions by making third-party developers that create add-on software for the Microsoft suites more comfortable. These moves come at a time when Microsoft is also trying to realign its core applications along the same code base and tailor them to work with the company's .Net Web services integration platform. Microsoft developers are creating a new code base, dubbed Project Green, to unify Business Solutions' four application suites. The effort is expected to be completed sometime next year or in 2006.