Steven Sinofsky, the no-nonsense Microsoft executive credited with bringing new discipline to Windows engineering, will be named the company’s newest divisional president today, according to multiple sources. The promotion signals the company’s confidence in Sinofsky’s revival of its flagship product — coming just as his team puts the finishing touches on Windows 7.

"Windows 7 is receiving terrific feedback from customers, partners, analysts alike, and the entire Windows team has done a great job," wrote Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in an internal email to employees announcing Sinofsky’s promotion, obtained by TechFlash.

At the same time, Bill Veghte, the senior vice president in charge of Windows sales and marketing, "will take a new leadership role in the company to be announced later this year," Ballmer wrote. Veghte and Sinofsky had been peers in Microsoft’s corporate hierarchy.

Sinofsky, previously senior vice president of Windows and Windows Live engineering, will be grappling with new competition in his elevated role. Google last night announced plans to release its own PC operating system next year, challenging Microsoft’s Windows franchise. That and ongoing competition from Apple promise to keep Sinofsky on his toes as he looks ahead to Windows 7’s successor.

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and Jackson memorial propels msnbc.com to new heights  

The Michael Jackson memorial was bigger than President Barack Obama’ s inauguration — at least measured by video streams on msnbc.com.

The Redmond online news site recorded nearly 19 million video streams yesterday, a new record. Meanwhile, msnbc.com said that its Twitter widget — which allowed viewers to post messages in real time and have them appear alongside the live video stream — recorded more than 75,000 Michael Jackson-related Tweets. 

As of 2 p.m. yesterday, the site had recorded more than 82 million page views and seven million unique visitors,

The Web held up pretty well during the memorial service, but Keynote Systems reported that it was taking about 20 percent longer than normal for news sites to load pages, according to VentureBeat.

 Meanwhile, TechCrunch reports on the numbers at CNN, which at one point yesterday saw 781,000 concurrent video streams.

John Cook is co-founder of TechFlash. Follow him on Twitter @johnhcook.

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and Amazon drops Kindle 2 price  

People who have held off buying a Kindle often cite the electronic reader’s hefty price tag. Now Amazon is cutting the price of its Kindle 2 reader from $359 to $299. Will the price cut spur demand? Selling Kindle 2 for under $300 may convince some people to take the plunge, but others may hold out for deeper discounts.

Amazon is currently devoting the top of its home page to the new Kindle 2 pricing. The company has been secretive about Kindle sales (CEO Jeff Bezos has said Amazon may never share that data) so it’s not clear how many devices are out there and how much revenue the company is making from them.

Amazon launched the Kindle 2 in February of this year. Its cousin, the large-screen Kindle DX, came out in early June, and right now is out of stock, with a 3 to 5 week wait for new shipments. Perhaps Amazon is trying to nudge people toward Kindle 2 with a price cut, to keep demand flowing while the DX is sold out. The DX, for the moment, maintains its $489 price tag.

Update: Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney weighed in on Kindle 2’s new pricing, writing in a research note: "We have long viewed a price cut as a prerequisite to more broad consumer adoption of the Kindle (consistent with other major electronics price reductions like the iPod)."

Mahaney added that his earlier estimate of $1.2 billion in Kindle sales by 2010 is unchanged because he had "already baked in this level of price cut" into his calculations.

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Endogastric scores $7.5 million  

Endogastric Solutions, a medical device company with offices in Redmond and the Bay Area, has raised $7.5 million in new funding from existing investors. The company will use the money for "continued commercialization of our products" for treatment of chronic acid reflux, said spokesman Chip Hennen.

Hennen did not provide information on which investors took part in the new funding. Since 2003, Endogastric has raised a total of $79 million from an investor group that includes Advanced Technology Ventures, Chicago Growth Partners, Foundation Medical Partners, MPM Capital, Oakwood Medical Investors, and De Novo Ventures. The company’s last funding came in August 2007, when it raised $30 million.

Endogastric Solutions came out of the MPM Capital incubator, Scout Technologies, in 2003, and was originally called EsophyX. It changed its name to Endogastric Solutions in 2005. The company’s CEO is Thierry Thaure. The company’s two products are called EsophyX and StomaphyX.

Endogastric was founded in Redmond but moved its corporate offices to Redwood City, Calif., about a year ago, Hennen said. The company maintains manufacturing, research and development, customer support, and training facilities in Redmond. Hennen did not immediately provide the company headcount.

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