I think the article does a disservice by focusing on Allard’s work on the Xbox and Zune. The truth is JAllard has been at Microsoft since 1991 and has had some pretty big accomplishments. The man built TCP/IP into Windows for God’s sakes. He’s credited as one of the people who put the web onto Microsoft’s radar (he was the only non-VP involved in the original plans for Internet Explorer and was pushing the web browser internally years before Gates knew what one was). He (with his team) created IIS (Microsoft’s web server for LAMP folks out there). And so on…
(Good book. Very pro-Microsoft but still entertaining)
So the fact that he’s leaving after 19 years says something very profound about the current state of Microsoft. It says the wheels have really come off the wagon at this point and that they’re pushing away the few good people they have left.
I mean, there’s basically a book written about him: http://www.amazon.com/How-Web-Was-Won-Idealists/dp/076790048...
(Good book. Very pro-Microsoft but still entertaining)
So the fact that he’s leaving after 19 years says something very profound about the current state of Microsoft. It says the wheels have really come off the wagon at this point and that they’re pushing away the few good people they have left.