Ray Ozzie leaving post as Microsoft's chief software architect

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/225271.asp

by Flemlord • 16 years ago

133 90 16 years ago

blog.seattlepi.com

mixmax• 16 years ago

Ray Ozzie is the CEO Microsoft should have had instead of Ballmer.

He actually understands tech, and is a visionary. Ballmer could just as easily have sold used cars, and doesn't have the deep knowledge and vision of software that's essential to running a company like Microsoft.

This is a bad day for MS.

bradleyland• 16 years ago

I remember watching the Ballmer/Ozzie interview at this year's All Things D conference, and wondering how the two of them even work at the same company. The contrast between the way they talked about Microsoft's products, and technology in general, was a really startling juxtaposition.

InclinedPlane4• 16 years ago

Ray Ozzie is not CEO material, imo, personality wise, that's why he didn't take the position (I'm sure he could have had it). Ballmer is CEO material certainly, but not good CEO material.

MS is in a bad place currently top-level management-wise.

nickelplate• 16 years ago

I think Ballmer is not CEO material for a tech company. However he may be good COO material.

hop• 16 years ago

In the same sense, would you say Bill G was prototypical CEO material? No, but look what he built. Ozzie is awkward too, but he founded and sold two software companies for a fortune. Zuckerberg is introverted and awkward too, but look what he has built. The notion that a CEO, especially in tech, should be a business degree toting, people-person, non-technical CEO like Ballmer is wrong.

credo• 16 years ago

Over the past decade, Microsoft's problem (imo as a former employee) is that they tried to do too many things and grew too fast at a time when they were not able to attract the best employees.

This creates a situation for the (hiring) quality bar to go down and for politicians to thrive.

sandGorgon• 16 years ago

Did you guys ever read the "architecture astronauts" article that Joel Spolsky wrote ?

It's pretty much about Ozzie and it aint flattering.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html

hello_moto• 16 years ago

Maybe it's time for Sinofsky to take his shot being the CSA of MS?

checoivan• 16 years ago

That'll be cool, but the mail says: "The CSA role was unique and I won’t refill the role after Ray’s departure".

keithwarren2• 16 years ago

That assumes Ballmer will be around long enough to enforce said policy.

InclinedPlane4• 16 years ago

This makes sense, the CSA role was, in theory, a major check on Ballmer's power. Though in practice Ozzie didn't execute in the role very well.

karzeem• 16 years ago

I know it's fashionable to beat up on Ballmer's buzzword-filled, meaning-deficient prose, but man, the guy sure doesn't make it hard for people.

keithwarren2• 16 years ago

As a shareholder I hereby nominate both Steve Sinofsky and Scott Guthrie to the role of Chief Software Architect. Either would make me happy.

kenjackson2• 16 years ago

Scott Guthrie would be great for the role. He's one of the few people I've met that is actually an exceptionally good developer, understands vision, and has strong leadership skills.

I have heard the knock that he is a bit "empire" focused. But moving him to CSA would force him to view the company as his empire rather than an org.

portman• 16 years ago

he is a bit "empire" focused

What does that mean? I've only ever heard stories about his legendary niceness, and that makes him sound political and, um, not-nice.

larsberg• 16 years ago

I agree. ScottGu both has the technical chops and the ability to ask hard questions. I had the opportunity to work directly with him (and his many-managers-ago lead, Mark) and have nothing but respect for him.

A return to the CSA role could be just what the company needs. "Back in the day," BillG reviews meant something. Your product could be completely shelved, and even though you could argue it was a huge waste of time for the team, it forced much harder thinking about every area of your product because you just never knew what he was going to ask about and expect you to have in-depth, well-researched answers about.

I always thought Ray was too nice and too high-level-vision of a guy to be in the role he was titled with. There's a reason you don't make the nicest guy in the platoon the next drill sergeant, no matter how well they do on the procedural tests and describing the goals of the next version of your military.

mturmon• 16 years ago

But the OP says MS will abolish the role of CSA.

contextfree5• 16 years ago

Aren't they already the de facto chief software architects anyway?

sunjain• 16 years ago

Ballmer should have been gone instead of Ray. I will not be surprised if Bill comes back(aka like what Jobs did when he came back to Apple). Granted Microsoft may not be in as bad a shape as Apple was when Jobs came back and Gates is no Jobs, but I am sure with Ballmer incharge for few more years, it might get that bad.

seldo• 16 years ago

Very unlikely, I think. Jobs was forced out and felt he had a lot to prove. Gates left voluntarily as the richest man in the world. There's very little chance of him coming back.

cubicle67• 16 years ago

Yes, Gates has nothing to gain by returning, but an awful lot to lose

angstrom• 16 years ago

It would actually look rather egotistical for him to come back. Even in Jobs case I think there's more a series of serendipitous events that rewarded intuition. Apple's success is a product of hard work and competitive complacency in the market.

Encosia2• 16 years ago

I think Bill's passion has shifted too far away from Microsoft's business for him to ever come back in earnest. I assume that's why he left in the first place.

Jobs, on the other hand, was immersed in the same tech/philosophy at NeXT that he would subsequently use to revitalize Apple.

megablast• 16 years ago

Why the hell would he come back, to what must be one of the most annoying and stressful jobs in the world, at least at this time for Microsoft. He can only lose, he can't win. Even if he does well, he would just have put Microsoft back on track to where it was before, and if he fails he gets a lot of grief.

And why would he give up all his projects and free time, for no gain at all.

city41• 16 years ago

Perhaps I'm just naive/ignorant, but I can't tell if this is a positive progression for Ozzie? Ballmer mentions Ozzie's retirement, is Ozzie just transitioning out of the workforce? Or did MS decide Ozzie's leadership is no longer positive for the company? The article does say "His leadership not particularly well-respected among employees in the trenches"

contextfree5• 16 years ago

My impression is that there's never been a particularly good relationship between the product groups at Microsoft and the more long-term focused researchy groups (not necessarily limited to MS Research proper?). A lot of "employees in the trenches" of the product groups seem to perceive the researchy guys as useless, impractical, a waste of money, etc.

Ozzie's concrete responsibility at MSFT, so far as I can tell, was running a bunch of medium-term focused groups to try and bridge that divide. They seem to have been generally regarded as unsuccessful in that respect so it's not too surprising that he would eventually quit/be pushed out/whatever.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

> I can't tell if this is a positive progression for Ozzie

leaving a sinking boat for one that floats is usually regarded as a good move...

protomyth• 16 years ago

There is an old Gillmor Gang podcast that has an interesting conversation as to what the panel thinks Ray Ozzie would bring to Microsoft. It looks like it all turned to ashes though.

uptown• 16 years ago

"the CSA role was unique and I won’t refill the role after Ray’s departure."

Seems like a position that would still prove useful in a company with so many interconnected moving parts.

aseem2• 16 years ago

As Microsoft CSA, Ozzie had to live up to the legacy of Gates while steering the direction of hundreds of product groups. This is certainly no simple task.

Ultimately, he was doomed to fail. His job was to advocate the right technologies at the right time. Yet MS rarely makes the right choices in this area. Technology decisions are made by political GMs who want to hold on to their empires. They are made by VPs who don't want to sacrifice short term profits for a longer term vision.

Steve Jobs made an excellent point at the D conference this year about how Apple tries to pick technologies that are in their "Spring". These are technologies that are on their way up. Certainly Steve has the luxury of not worrying as much about backwards compatibility, etc. But he certainly has the courage of his convictions to pick a path that's best for his company and customers.

I don't think Ray had that kind of fortitude, and unfortunately, I don't think he had that kind of power. Ultimately, the CEO needs to push the technological vision of Microsoft. Leaving it to mid-level managers will only result in further mediocrity.

jimbokun• 16 years ago

"His job was to advocate the right technologies at the right time. Yet MS rarely makes the right choices in this area. Technology decisions are made by political GMs who want to hold on to their empires."

So he had much responsibility and little authority, always a combination that guarantees failure.

slantyyz3• 16 years ago

Agreed, I never really saw him as much more than a figurehead.

In many ways, Microsoft is such an immovable beast, you can't expect many people outside of a Bill Gates to have the gravitas to make things happen.

allwein• 16 years ago

>always a combination that guarantees failure.

Well, not always. I'm actually reading a book on the subject right now called "Results Without Authority"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814473431?ie=UTF8&tag=...

lkijuhygtfd2• 16 years ago

Technologies in their spring?

A BSD kernel, a gui from Next and a object orientated version of C from before C++ !

Technology-wise Apple basically takes a steam train, wraps a Bang+Olufson case around it and makes it emit the scent of roses!

Nice toys, very well made, but cutting edge technology doesn't underpin Apple's success.

aseem2• 16 years ago

You certainly note some fair examples for your point. However, I was referring to Apple's choosing of HTML5 instead of Flash. The easy choice that probably benefits mostly in the short-term is to play nice with Flash. Ultimately, Jobs and his team felt the best customer experience was to ditch Flash much to the malign of developers. Would Microsoft made such a decision? And who at Microsoft makes those decisions? Where does the buck stop?

gvb• 16 years ago

Exactly! Jobs picked BSD (1977), the NeXT GUI (1985/1988), and an object oriented version of C (1986) that came before C++ (1983)! (OK, BSD had been around a little while by that time, and C++ predated Objective C.) They are mature technologies now, but were all picked relatively early in their life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B

slantyyz3• 16 years ago

Can't fault you on your points -- they're all solid, but I would say there's a glaring omission. Cutting edge user experience (and that includes usability) does underpin Apple's success.

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

I would like you to explain a little more how C++ is more "cutting edge" than Obj-C, etc.

BSD is still used in Free/Open/Net/BSD; and Next's GUI was based on Display Postscript, which was easily tuned for PDF (PS and PDF are very similar languages)

What you will notice is that all of these choices were designed by very small teams, sometimes just 1 person was involved in the original design:

BSD - Bill Joy and a few others made the major design decisions

Next GUI - Keith Ohlfs, on top of DPS licensed from Adobe

Objective C - designed mainly by Brad Cox

You missed the Mach kernel, originally a small research project from CMU, Avie Tevanian worked on porting Mach to a multi-processor system in the early to mid 1980s.

jonhendry2• 16 years ago

They (and the MACH kernel) were new-ish when Jobs picked them in the 80s.

He kept them because they work well.

rimantas2• 16 years ago

Yep. Capacitive touchscreens, unibodies and state of the art battery tech don't count.

auxbuss• 16 years ago

The CEO must push/sell the technological vision, but he must not make it. Not in a company the size of Microsoft.

I won't miss Microsoft, but their inability to define a vision, communicate, and execute it is voyeuristic to observe.

That said, Ballmer needs to walk, and do it quickly. It's over.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

> I won't miss Microsoft, but their inability to define a vision, communicate, and execute it is voyeuristic to observe.

It's like watching a trainwreck in slow motion from a thousand different angles, isn't it?

(burn, karma, burn)

ergo98• 16 years ago

>Ultimately, he was doomed to fail.

Ozzie was essentially given reign to plow some green fields. He failed miserably at giving Microsoft any credibility or initiative.

ciupicri• 16 years ago

> Certainly Steve has the luxury of not worrying as much about backwards compatibility

Not all the time. Let's not forget about the Universal Binaries (a solution for the transition to Intel) and the Carbon API:

Carbon provides backward compatibility for existing Mac OS X software, while serving as a stepping stone for developers porting procedural applications from other platforms. [1]

[1] http://developer.apple.com/carbon/

Zev3• 16 years ago

Let's not forget about the Universal Binaries (a solution for the transition to Intel)

And from 68k to PPC.

elblanco5• 16 years ago

> I don't think Ray had that kind of fortitude, and unfortunately, I don't think he had that kind of power.

I'm not even sure, looking at old internal Bill Gates emails and memos, that Bill had that kind of power.

Uhhrrr• 16 years ago

Is it relevant to mention that Ozzie was/is one of joelonsoftware's canonical examples of "Architecture Astronauts" (that is, someone whose idea of minimum viable product is every app sharing everything)?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html

lukestevens• 16 years ago

Yes, particularly this post: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html

But Windows Live Mesh is not just a way to synchronize files. That's just the sample app. It's a whole goddamned architecture, with an API and developer tools and in insane diagram showing all the nifty layers of acronyms, and it seems like the chief astronauts at Microsoft literally expect this to be their gigantic platform in the sky which will take over when Windows becomes irrelevant on the desktop. And synchronizing files is supposed to be, like, the equivalent of Microsoft Write on Windows 1.0.

It's Groove, rewritten from scratch, one more time. Ray Ozzie just can't stop rewriting this damn app, again and again and again, and taking 5-7 years each time.

And the fact that customers never asked for this feature and none of the earlier versions really took off as huge platforms doesn't stop him.

mjfern• 16 years ago

Given Ray Ozzie was the mastermind behind Windows Azure (launched in 2010), Microsoft's cloud computing offering that competes with Amazon's Web Services and Google's App Engine (and Google Docs), this can't be a good sign.

In fact, this is a further indication of Microsoft's struggles in each key market that represents the future of computing: cloud computing, thin devices, and online media.

First consider cloud computing, with Windows Azure. I found it difficult to find any concrete data on how Azure is performing in the market, but I suspect it’s not performing well. Put simply, it’s hard to imagine that Microsoft is aggressively developing or marketing Azure, since cloud computing offerings directly threaten Microsoft’s revenues and profitability in the PC market, especially its Windows and Office products.

Next, consider Microsoft’s performance in thin devices, especially smartphones, video game consoles, and portable media players. With a current global market share of just 4.7% (Gartner, 2010), Microsoft is behind every other major mobile OS developer, including Symbian, Android, iOS, and Blackberry. In video game consoles, the Xbox 360 is trailing far behind the Nintendo Wii in market share, despite the fact that the Wii is using older generation technology (VGChartz, 2010). The Zune portable media player has a paltry 2% market share, compared to the iPod’s 70% (NPD, 2010). And Microsoft hasn’t revealed a clear strategy to compete in important and emerging thin device categories, such as tablets and connected televisions.

Moving on to online media, consider Microsoft’s performance in search or in online music or video. According to comScore (2010) Google has a 66.1% share of the search market, compared to 11.2% for Microsoft. And while Google generated $23.65 billion in revenues and $6.5 billion in income from search related advertising in 2009, Bing generated just $2.2 billion, with a $2.35 billion operating loss in its most recent fiscal year. Meanwhile, Microsoft is well behind Google and Apple in the online music and video markets (e.g., Microsoft’s Zune marketplace versus Apple’s iTunes or Google’s YouTube versus Bing video).

In closing, Microsoft’s financial performance since its initial public offering in 1986 has been nothing short of phenomenal. But if Microsoft wants to remain a leader in the future of computing, it must quickly and aggressively shift its focus and investments away from desktops and packaged applications to a combination of cloud computing, thin devices, and cloud computing. Given a bulk of Microsoft’s financial performance ($4.5 billion in quarterly profits!) and its core capabilities rest with Windows and Office, I am pessimistic that it has the interest or ability to make this fundamental transition.

I just posted this to my blog and submitted the post to HN. If you enjoyed the read, I'd appreciate an upvote (the article title is "Is Microsoft in trouble?"). Thanks!

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

> Windows Azure (launched in 2010), Microsoft's cloud computing offering that competes with Amazon's Web Services and Google's App Engine

Never heard of anyone using it. Does it really compete if it has no clients?

vyrotek2• 16 years ago

Our company uses it. :)

contextfree5• 16 years ago

fwiw, our company has vague plans to move towards Azure-based hosting.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

It seems nobody paying attention uses it:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1807517

elblanco5• 16 years ago

One of the things Jobs did when he returned was cut all the distracting crap and refocus the company on what it was good at.

One of the things that's always mystified me is the vast vast software and hardware product lineup that Microsoft has to service...mostly in areas it's not terribly good at. If you really look at where Microsoft has done well, it's not in consumer electronics devices like music players or phones, online services like search, consumer software like flight simulators or whatever and unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn't make computers (and probably shouldn't)...Microsoft does one thing and one thing really well, productivity software and providing centralized management of the enterprise. Both areas that they really don't have any serious competitors in. Apple doesn't care much about the enterprise, and iWorks is just a passable replacement for Office.

For my money, I still can't buy a comparable office productivity suite anywhere. iWorks is not bad, OO.org stinks, and everything else is distant also rans. Outlook on the Exchange ecosystem simply is awesome. And Windows these days ain't half bad.

Why are these pieces of software great? Because they can be abused beyond all recognition to do tasks so far off script that it can sometimes be jaw dropping, and still they function exactly fine...and the path to that madness isn't really all that long...and in a pinch, you can MacGuyver together an Office solution to many real world problems in a snap and the software will see you through the day. It's not great software, it's generally poorly designed, and full of feature creep, but it gets you through some serious pinches. Some of these user patterns are so common that they've become the defacto use for the software. Does anybody balance their checkbook in Excel anymore?

Microsoft needs to stop mucking about in areas that they'll never have a credible presence and focus the entire company on this core competency. We will always, always, always, need email, a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation tool.

Questions they should be asking themselves:

Why doesn't Exchange and Outlook expose enterprise IM better? This should be standard everywhere.

Why does collaboration with Office products still stink?

Why don't I have an instant file name search tool with optional content index built into the OS better than the crap they already provide? Something like everything http://www.voidtools.com/ with a Lucene index for full text search. This stuff doesn't have to drag the entire OS down.

Why doesn't Microsoft have a centralized and updated on-line repository for driver management (redirect-able to a local Enterprise server)?

Why does every Windows computer not ship with an IDE and half a dozen languages? How come I don't have Perl & Python installed by default?

Why the hell is Visio so poorly integrated with the other Office tools? This seems like a no brainer to me. The amount of half-assed diagram and chart building people do in PowerPoint is absurd.

Why doesn't Microsoft control the end-user software distribution channel by now? Why do I have Steam installed when Microsoft built everything to support gaming on my PC except for that last bit? Seriously, what the hell?

Why does the built in defragger suck so bad? Why do I have to defrag at all?

Why do I have to get virus scanning software? Why does Microsoft make virus scanning software and hardly promote it? Why isn't that just part of some Windows update? Don't look for something to certify protection status, and then not be the provider of that software.

Why does IE consistently suck? If there's ever a productivity tool that needs to be the best in class like Word and Excel, it's IE.

Why does Office not have photo and video productivity software? It doesn't have to be great, Paint.net is pretty good for photo editing. Ditch Paint, and get with it. There's some upsell opportunity here, everybody needs a paint program. For that matter, make a variant of PowerPoint as a stupid simple Vector Graphics tool...everybody uses it for that anyway, just formalize it and turn it into a revenue opportunity.

How can we better integrate our Office products? Everybody routinely uses the other tools to build content for Word documents, and Word to edit text for the other tools. Cut all the overlapping crap out and just use those tools instead. I shouldn't have a table and a drawing editor in Word, but I should be able to paste something from Excel into Word without the formatting getting screwed all to hell and the table running past the edges of the document margins. Just open the appropriate tool for the job when needed.

And then I should be able to use the copy and other assets I make in Word to better feed Publisher (which is also something strangely absent from most Office installs, but does a passable job for simple Desktop Publishing).

Basically, make your content generating tools generate content for each other, do it really well, and then open the APIs so other people can play in this new productivity ecosystem.

You know what I routinely need? I need a best in class OCR tool to mass OCR lots of scanned documents. That would make me super productive. Why isn't that part of Office? Why am I stuck with an absolutely unusable and ancient format designed for digital faxes?

You know what I would have given a left foot for in High School and College and Grad School? A decent, highly integrated CAS (not Excel), at least on par (and preferably compatible with) with my TI-89, but at better resolution with more features and functionality, and that let me copy and paste equations and such from-to the tool.

Microsoft already owns this area, they should be looking for more ways to monetize on it. I just gave them 3 or 4 new products they could sell as part of a bonus back for Office and make some cash off of it. Instead, we get Bing, Zune, Windows Phone, Songsmith, Streets, WorldWide Telescope, Autocollage and other useless, aborted or otherwise DOA products.

Why the hell does Microsoft still have Works? Even the webpage for Works https://www.microsoft.com/products/works/default.mspx looks like an abortion. Seriously, who is the target for that? Just sell a cheaper Office and keep everybody in your one software ecosystem.

aniket_ray• 16 years ago

I think anti-trust litigation would be a reason why they aren't in more markets.

mistermann• 16 years ago

A simpler question is, why doesn't Microsoft have people like you working for them? My bet is, someone that came into an interview talking like that would be considered by someone, somewhere, eventually in the hiring process to be "too ambitious" and feel their job is threatened.

Supposedly Windows usability is tested up the yin yang, but I (as could millions of other people) could easily come up with a list of 100+ items that could make a real, tangible improvement in the windows user experience. Anyone with similar ideas I suspect would also fail the interview process at some point.

I'd say its a fair speculation that one difference between when Bill was running the company and now, is that people used to be hired based on what they could do for Microsoft overall, and now they are hired based on what they can do for the career of the person at Microsoft hiring them. Bill used to run Microsoft with an all seeing eye and an iron fist, just as Steve does now with Apple.

rwmj• 16 years ago

And why don't they just make Office for Linux. It's about time for it ...

Encosia2• 16 years ago

A few answers, off the top of my head:

> Why doesn't Exchange and Outlook expose enterprise IM better? This should be standard everywhere.

Office Communicator handles inter-office IM well, including handy features like integrated desktop sharing.

> Why does collaboration with Office products still stink?

I loathe it when used as a public-facing CMS, but the recent versions of SharePoint offer impressive collaboration/versioning when coupled with Office on desktops.

> Why does the built in defragger suck so bad? Why do I have to defrag at all?

You don't. This has been happening automatically in the background since Vista. The tool is mostly still there just to scratch psychosomatic itches.

> You know what I routinely need? I need a best in class OCR tool to mass OCR lots of scanned documents. That would make me super productive. Why isn't that part of Office? Why am I stuck with an absolutely unusable and ancient format designed for digital faxes?

Office started shipping with OCR starting in the 2003 version. It's integrated in the products if you scan directly into them, or look for the Microsoft Office Document Imaging tool that gets installed along with Office to do that standalone.

> Why doesn't Microsoft control the end-user software distribution channel by now? Why do I have Steam installed when Microsoft built everything to support gaming on my PC except for that last bit? Seriously, what the hell? > Why do I have to get virus scanning software? Why does Microsoft make virus scanning software and hardly promote it? Why isn't that just part of some Windows update? Don't look for something to certify protection status, and then not be the provider of that software.

Things like that are anti-trust minefields.

contextfree5• 16 years ago

I have no idea why you think that (paid, subscription-based) cloud computing offerings threaten Microsoft's revenues. In fact they've been trying to get people to move to a subscription model for like a decade now - which is understandable, since competition with their own previous versions and keeping people on the upgrade cycle has always been one of their biggest problems - and they are definitely aggressively promoting it (considering that this year's and the last two years' PDCs are largely focused around it).

They are threatened in the consumer space by the trend towards web applications, they're not threatened in the enterprise space by the trend towards subscription-based cloud services (which is overhyped - including by Microsoft! anyway, but that's another story) - they welcome it. I guess people are conflating the two.

maguay• 16 years ago

Does anyone else find it to be odd timing for this move? Ozzie just started blogging again on the 14th (http://ozzie.net/2010/10/14/hello/), and here 4 days later it's announced that he's leaving Microsoft. Maybe that's why he was trying to build his own unique audience again...

xtho• 16 years ago

He blogged about cleaning up his (home) office.

brisance• 16 years ago

The timing of this release couldn't have been any worse; Apple reports yet another record-breaking quarter on the exact same day this gets airtime. Ballmer must be trying really hard to destroy MSFT shareholder value.

mattiask• 16 years ago

The problem with Microsoft and leadership is the same as in every big company. To truly do something different and innovative you need a benevolent dictator that can put down their feet and say "I don't care what you think, we're doing this and it's going to be great".

You need both the political power within the company to get things done and have the visionary skills to know what needs to be done. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both obviously has/had this to some degree and could coax, bully and motivate people to see their way. Radical change needs radical leaders.

Ray Ozzie is a great technical visionary but he probably wasn't enough of a dictator to accomplish the radical changes Microsoft needs to stay lean and current. If you could put Ray's technical acumen into Steve's bullying body you would have the perfect CEO :)

darrenkopp• 16 years ago

Could anyone tell me what exactly Ray Ozzie has done since bill gates left? I honestly can't think of anything, but I don't think that is true. I just think he's been a bit more low key. Everything MS is coming out with has Ballmer's face on it.

contextfree5• 16 years ago

My understanding is that the projects he was most directly associated with have been Windows Azure, Live Mesh, and (some of?) the various "Labs" groups - Live Labs, FUSE Labs - which have released a variety of smaller projects.

Ray Ozzie leaving post as Microsoft's chief software architect

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