Computerworld - At the same time it unveiled a major reorganization today, Microsoft Corp. announced that Jim Allchin, group vice president of platforms at the software company, would retire at the end of next year.
This is the e-mail in which Allchin spelled out his thoughts on retirement to co-workers.
Subject: Follow-on thoughts -- about me and more
By now you should have seen the mail from Kevinjo and me to the new organization. I wanted to take a moment and send a note to the "old" platforms team to share some of my private thoughts about this change. I apologize in advance for so much email today.
Jim Allchin, group vice president of platforms at Microsoft Corp.
Today, we have the opportunity to not only reinvent the way software is developed but also to greatly improve the richness of the experience our customers have with our software. As someone who has spent most of his life working in computer science, I truly believe we are just at the beginning of the software revolution.
After Windows Vista is in the hands of customers, however, it will be the right time for me to shift my attention to other priorities. About 2 1/2 years ago a medical event in my life caused me to take a step back and evaluate all my priorities. I am fine now, but I made a decision then to retire at the end of 2006.
Make no mistake about it. I love this company. And I love the progress we are making. Windows Vista will be awesome. We're getting good feedback on Beta 1 and the PDC was a great success that you can all be proud of -- these are exciting times. We are making solid progress with our Mobile business and we are going like gangbusters on the Server and Tools front with stunning new products coming from all the product teams including Windows Server, SQL, Exchange, BizTalk and Visual Studio.
We've learned some hard lessons over the last few years and my hope is that we will use those lessons wisely. My dream is for a much more agile, quality driven engineering organization with fewer roadblocks and more open highway to
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