Niall Kennedy, a high-profile hire from Technorati who joined Microsoft in April 2006 as Program Manager for syndication with the Windows Live team, has quit. And quit with a bang. From Kennedy's "Leaving Microsoft" post: "Windows Live is under some heavy change, reorganization, pullback, and general paralysis and unfortunately my ability to perform, hire, and execute was completely frozen as well." Ouch. Kennedy is off to do a startup, according to his blog, as of August 18.