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.'"

Comments

He probably

[Fenresulven]

'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.

Reasons why...

[hsmyers]

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.