Ray Ozzie: Bill Gates' fifth guy
ENT News | at | by Mike
When Microsoft formally acquires Groove Networks next quarter, Groove founder Ray Ozzie, an outspoken advocate of peer-to-peer virtual workspaces and a collaboration software pioneer, will join Bill Gates' personal stable of big thinkers.
Ozzie will become one of three chief technical officers reporting directly to Gates. In his role as chief software architect, Gates now has five direct reports: senior vice president of research Rick Rashid, senior vice president of engineering strategy Jon DeVaan and CTOs Ozzie, Craig Mundie and David Vaskevitch. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also reports to Gates in the Microsoft co-founder's role as Microsoft chairman. All other high-level Microsoft executives report to Ballmer.