Ray Ozzie to Leave Microsoft: Has The Future Left the Building?

[ChromeFoundry]

Oct. 18, 2010, 2:26pm PDT

Ray Ozzie, the chief software architect with Microsoft is leaving the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant after a transition period. Ozzie is widely viewed as someone who tried to change Microsoft’s internal attitudes toward cloud computing and other Internet technologies, and is is credited for Microsoft’s move into the cloud with its Azure efforts. In a memo to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer wrote:

And by conceiving, incubating and shepherding Windows Azure, Ray helped ensure we have a tremendously rich platform foundation that will enable app-level innovation across the company and by customers for years to come. With our progress in services and the cloud now full speed ahead in all aspects of our business, Ray and I are announcing today Ray’s intention to step down from his role as chief software architect. He will remain with the company as he transitions the teams and ongoing strategic projects within his organization — bringing the great innovations and great innovators he’s assembled into the groups driving our business.

Having spoken with him on a handful of occasions, I always found Ozzie very un-Microsoft like in his approach to software and technologies, and that’s perhaps what made him a change agent. Five years ago, he and Bill Gates wrote two separate memos to Microsoft employees about change and Microsoft’s adaptation to that change. Upon reading those memos, I wrote:

More: http://gigaom.com/2010/10/18/ray-ozzie-leaves-microsoft-has-the-future-left-the-building/