Bates has been serving as Microsoft's chief of business development and evangelism, while Reller has been the software maker's head of marketing. The Recode report said that Bates' duties will be handled for the time being by Eric Rudder, who oversees Microsoft's advanced strategy, and that Reller's replacement will be marketing executive Chris Capossela. Bates had come to Microsoft in its acquisition of Skype, where he had served as CEO.

The report of the purported departures comes about a month after Microsoft named Satya Nadella as its new CEO, taking over for longtime company leader Steve Ballmer.

And just a few days ago, Microsoft confirmed that Julie Larson-Green would be stepping aside from her post as leader of hardware development to take the top spot at the My Life & Work team inside the Applications and Services Group.

Bates and Larson-Green were among the internal candidates, along with Nadella, whom Microsoft had considered for the CEO post, according to Mary Jo Foley at CNET sister site ZDNet.

Microsoft declined to comment on the Recode report.