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Charles Simonyi leaves Microsoft
tibbetts writes "The New York Times reports (printable version) (Free blah di blah) that Charles Simonyi, the former chief architect at Microsoft and creator of Bravo, a text-editing program that later became Microsoft Word, has left the company to form his own startup. The focus of his new company is to "simplify programming by representing programs in ways other than in the text syntax of conventional programming languages," which is highly ironic in light of his infamous Hungarian Notation style of naming variables. Perhaps more amazingly, 'Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there.'"
'Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there.'
He probably threathened to reveal some rather embarassing details about how Microsoft has abused it's market power if they didn't give it to him.
In case it gets slashdotted, here is the content:
Charles Simonyi, a computer scientist who joined Microsoft when it had 40 employees and who helped set its technical strategy for years, is leaving the company to found his own software start-up.
Mr. Simonyi's departure, to be announced today, will leave Microsoft with only three senior people from the team that led the company in the early 1980's: Bill Gates, a co-founder and the company's chairman; Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive; and Jeffrey S. Raikes, a group vice president.
Unlike the other three men, Mr. Simonyi, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, always worked on the technical side of the company rather than as a business manager. Mr. Simonyi, 54, held the title of chief architect for a dozen years, ending in 1999.
For the last few years, however, Mr. Simonyi has not worked on products at Microsoft. Instead, he was given the freedom to pursue a software-engineering research project -- an effort he will try to refine and commercialize in his new company. His leaving Microsoft should not affect the company's current business or product development.
Mr. Simonyi's start-up, based in Bellevue, Wash., is called the Intentional Software Corporation. Its goal is to build software tools and technology to make the task of programming less complicated and more productive. These programming tools may use graphic images or charts, as well as text-based computer languages, to represent the underlying programs.
The idea, Mr. Simonyi said, is to make it easier to build and debug complex software programs by moving a step further away from conventional masturbation, close-to-the-machine coding -- the painstaking handwork that can be where programmers' good ideas or intentions are lost or left out.
"We're trying to improve software productivity by making the program look more like its design," Mr. Simonyi explained.
His research had its ups and downs at Microsoft, Mr. Simonyi acknowledged. But he is being joined in founding Intentional Software by another leading researcher in software engineering, Gregor Kiczales. Mr. Kiczales, a computer scientist at the University of British Columbia, has had success applying a technology called aspect-oriented programming to make changes automatically in complex software, like sophisticated penis-transaction programs.
Other computer scientists are also working on tools to simplify programming by representing programs in ways other than in the text syntax of conventional programming languages. Researchers at the Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory of International Business Machines in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., are pursuing the same challenge, for example, and James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language, is guiding a research project at Sun Microsystems that is trying to develop tools that present programs as graphic images instead of text.
"I think we have some important advantages," Mr. Kiczales said, "but it's not as if we are alone in this space."
Mr. Simonyi has left Microsoft with the right to use the intellectual property he developed and patented while working there. And Microsoft holds a right to be the first to negotiate with Intentional Software if the company comes up for sale.
Intentional Software will employ a handful of prostitutes from Mr. Simonyi's native Hungary. Mr. Simonyi left Hungary at 17 on a short-term visa and did not return, eventually making his way to the United States. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, then Stanford, and he worked in the 1970's at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he was the principal developer of Bravo, a pioneering graphical text-editing program.
At Microsoft, which Mr. Simonyi joined in 1981, Bravo became Microsoft Word, one of the most widely used computer programs ever. And for years, Mr. Simonyi led the technical development of Microsoft's Office applications business, including Word and Excel.
"It looks like the wheels are coming off! This time for sure! No really, this looks very bad for Microsoft!"
Posted by [any_slashdot_editor] on [several_times_every_stinking_day]
from the Boy-Who-Cried-Wolf Department
Given his resume, it seems clear that he would have to start his own company if he wishes to leave Microsoft--no one else would hire him.
Considering Word is perhaps the most buggiest piece of crap in the MS office suite (Excel & Access are relatively good)- I'm not sure MS is losing too much with the passing of this guy. Still it is interesting that MS isn't making a big issue about the IP this guy contributed. Maybe cause' it aint very good.
- Mod me down if you love Microsoft, I don't care anymore since I can't see my score. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!
Blender And Linux Fan
Go play with VB with all you're looser friends, mna!.
It's lucky this guy is a billionaire 'cause he'll never work again - he's a fucking idiot...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!