Jim Allchin has left the building
WinInfo | at | by Mike
No Microsoft executive had more of a direct impact on Vista than Jim Allchin. Sadly, however, Allchin has now retired: His last day was Wednesday, January 31. "Microsoft is an absolutely amazing company--full of such incredible people," Allchin wrote in a goodbye note to his coworkers and friends. "In fact, when I came to Microsoft, one of the things that struck me the most was just how many smart people there were. I had been around smart people at school and work before, but never so many of them. Not only were they smart though, they had incredible passion for technology, for learning, for improving, and most of all for changing the world using technology to improve people's lives." I'm going to miss Allchin a lot, actually. He's a class act and a great guy who really cared about Windows and the community that grew up around it. Fortunately, he's going out on a high note: Vista is quite a legacy and should fuel the next decade of computing.