J Allard Rumored to Be Leaving Microsoft

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3179446

by eplanit • 16 years ago

28 21 16 years ago

If I'd been involved in any way with Courier, I'd be on my way out of there as well.

I've heard Microsoft called "the biggest waste of some of the industry's best talent." Courier may be the poster child for this, but if it's systemic, that's how they're going to continue to lose people like Allard.

I'm sad to see this happen. He should have been on the way up at Microsoft; he could have changed things for the better if they'd let him.

snprbob86• 16 years ago

"the biggest waste of some of the industry's best talent"

I've seen this first-hand. Incredibly talented people losing DAYS of productivity to trivial disagreements, corporate power grabs, and other wholly avoidable problems. If you start noticing it, it is really quite painful to watch. Sadly, most people just let it float on by.

awa2• 16 years ago

but then there aren't many places where you can basically work whatever you want to on. Take Allard example, he has worked on TCP/IP protocol in Windows, Internet explorer, Xbox, Zune, and now courier.

megablast• 16 years ago

On the other hand, a lot of people are saying that Microsoft should focus more on its core, not keep expanding into so many markets, that it is not winning.

XBox overall is yet to make a return for Microsoft. Sure, over the last year or so it has started to turn a profit, but when you look at all the money MS has invested in this, they are heavily in the red.

Zune is yet to turn a profit.

Why would courier be any different to these?

nickelplate• 16 years ago

I fully agree that Micosoft has been neglecting their core competencies lately, but I think they should expand into other markets, only they should be a lot smarter about it. I do not understand ther obsession with the strategy tax and the preservation of the windows monopoly. They seem to have made bets on many of the right things (online gaming, tablets, Internet tv, mobile computing), but except for online gaming they have pretty much been outhustled hy the competition, despite their head start.

TomOfTTB• 16 years ago

I think the article does a disservice by focusing on Allard’s work on the Xbox and Zune. The truth is JAllard has been at Microsoft since 1991 and has had some pretty big accomplishments. The man built TCP/IP into Windows for God’s sakes. He’s credited as one of the people who put the web onto Microsoft’s radar (he was the only non-VP involved in the original plans for Internet Explorer and was pushing the web browser internally years before Gates knew what one was). He (with his team) created IIS (Microsoft’s web server for LAMP folks out there). And so on…

I mean, there’s basically a book written about him: http://www.amazon.com/How-Web-Was-Won-Idealists/dp/076790048...

(Good book. Very pro-Microsoft but still entertaining)

So the fact that he’s leaving after 19 years says something very profound about the current state of Microsoft. It says the wheels have really come off the wagon at this point and that they’re pushing away the few good people they have left.

andrewljohnson• 16 years ago

Couldn't the fact that he's leaving after 19 years be because.... he's been there for 19 years?

wallflower• 16 years ago

> The man built TCP/IP into Windows for God’s sakes.

Before Windows Sockets, getting on the net was a technical exercise. You had to configure a packet driver and maybe even NetBIOS. Or you had to use an expensive third-part net library. Netmanage Chameleon I argue that the reason why Microsoft Internet Explorer became a monopoly was because of winsock32.dll.

leej• 16 years ago

it's more correct to say that ms has "integrated" tcp/ip into windows.

sriramk• 16 years ago

J was one of the people behind DHCP. His name is on the RFC http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2131.html

wglb• 16 years ago

While the article suggests that he is leaving due to cancellation of a project that he was involved in, after 19 years anywhere, a person might consider moving on just to see what else is going on in the rest of the world.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

Less interesting that he is leaving microsoft, more interesting is where is he going to ?

J Allard Rumored to Be Leaving Microsoft

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