For those who don't know Charlie his contributions include (as listed at <a href="http://www.liveside.net/2011/08/08/charlie-kindel-to-leave-microsoft-after-21-years/" rel="nofollow">http://www.liveside.net/2011/08/08/charlie-kindel-to-leave-m...</a>):<p>- Founded Premier support<p>- Built ActiveX and DCOM<p>- Shipped Internet Explorer 3.0<p>- Drove the development of the home networking features in Windows XP<p>- Founded eHome and shipped the first version of Windows Media Center<p>- Drove the invention of Windows Smart Displays and Windows Media Center Extenders<p>- Served Bob Muglia as executive technical assistant as he ran the Enterprise Storage business through to him running the Server and Tools Division<p>- Was the driving force behind Windows Home Server<p>- Led the design and development of the Windows Phone 7 Application Platform<p>- Drove the Windows Phone 7 application platform ecosystem development and evangelism effort
Submitted this and found out I was beaten by less than a minute :)<p>Charlie is an extremely famous figure at MSFT for everything from COM, Windows Home Server to WP7.<p>The first time I came across him was when I was in high school and I knew him as the guy behind COM (sorry, Charlie :) ) who wrote the funny foreword to Don Box's book. It is surreal to think that I actually met him and got to know him. This is a guy who knows how to build stuff. Big loss for MSFT.
Middle managers at Microsoft can be successful because of a number of skills not relevant in a startup: ability to run huge teams, Microsoft institutional knowledge, political maneuvering and so on. Some of these skills might even be harmful in a startup. It will be interesting to see how Kindel fairs outside of Microsoft.
>>but he says he still believes strongly in Microsoft’s long-term prospects against the likes of Apple and Google in the mobile market.<p>I think he looses a lot of credibility saying something like this. What does he base his belief on? Better not say anything.