Thought this would interest you, got this link from my Lockergnome - Bits "n Bytes email today. Full interview can be read when you click "read more".
After what he describes as one of the best product launches in the company"s history, Jim Allchin"s star at Microsoft has never shined more brightly.
As group vice president of Microsoft"s Platforms Group, Allchin was ultimately responsible for shepherding Windows XP, the company"s latest operating system, through to a successful completion last fall. Arguably the company"s third most important executive behind Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Allchin, a soft-talking Southerner, can be excused for enjoying a moment of schadenfreude at the expense of critics who said XP"s debut would fall far short of the hype.
But in the computer business, the XP launch was an eternity ago; these days Allchin is wrestling with the equally daunting challenge of helping transform Microsoft .Net and HailStorm from white-board sketches into commercially successful ventures. In addition, there"s the not-so-small matter of trying to bulletproof Microsoft software against security holes during a companywide code review, taking place during the month of February.
Allchin recently sat down with CNET News.com to offer an update on life after XP and how the company plans to hurdle the growing privacy challenge presented to its software.