Jim Allchin | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Background information | |
Born | 1951 (age 72–73) Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
|
Instrument(s) |
|
Website | jimallchin |
Education | University of Florida (BS) Stanford University (MS) Georgia Institute of Technology (PhD) |
Known for |
|
James Edward Allchin (born 1951, Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States) is an American computer scientist, philanthropist and guitarist. He is a former Microsoft executive.
He assisted Microsoft in creating many of the system platform components including Microsoft Windows, Windows Server, server products such as SQL Server, and developer technologies. He is best known for building Microsoft's server business and for leading foundational releases of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. [1] He is also known for his leading role in the architecture and development of the directory services technology Banyan VINES. He has won numerous awards in his career such as the Technical Excellence Person of the Year in 2001. [2] Jim Allchin led the Platforms division at Microsoft, overseeing the development of Windows client from Windows 98 to Windows Vista, Windows Server from NT Server 4.0 to Windows Server 2008, as well as several releases of Microsoft server products as well as Windows CE and Windows Embedded line of products. After serving sixteen years at Microsoft, Allchin retired in early 2007 when Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers. [3] He is now a professional musician. [4]
Allchin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1951. While he was still an infant, the Allchin family moved to Keysville, Florida, where his parents worked on a farm. Allchin grew up in a tin-roof house built by his father. [5] Neither of his parents attended college, but his father had a natural talent for math and would perform business calculations off the top of his head. [6]
Later, Allchin and his older brother Keith also worked on the farm to support the family financially. [5] As a child, he worked in orange groves and spent some of his free time learning music. Allchin first began playing the trumpet but later switched to the guitar. [7]
While fixing equipment on the farm, Allchin developed an interest in engineering. He studied Electrical engineering at the University of Florida, but dropped out to play in a number of bands. He later returned to the university and graduated with BS in Computer Science in 1973.
After receiving his degree, Allchin joined Texas Instruments, where he helped build a new operating system. [6] Afterwards, he followed a former lecturer, Dick Kiger, to Wyoming, where he helped him to start a new company offering computer services nationwide, before moving on to another company in Dallas, Texas.
Allchin returned to his studies, earning the degree of MS in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1980. Allchin wrote a language-independent, portable file system while at Stanford. [8] While pursuing his PhD in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology in the early eighties, he was the primary architect of the Clouds distributed object-oriented operating system; [9] his PhD thesis was entitled "An Architecture for Reliable Decentralized Systems". [10]
In 1983, Allchin was recruited to Banyan by founder Dave Mahoney, eventually being Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. During his seven years at Banyan, he created the VINES distributed operating system, which included the StreetTalk directory protocol as well as a series of network services based on the Xerox XNS stack.
Bill Gates tried to recruit a reluctant Allchin to join Microsoft for a year, yet successfully convinced him to join in 1990. Gates told him that whatever he created would have a wider customer base through Microsoft than anyone else. [5]
Allchin is known as a prolific computer programmer/engineer. [6] Allchin is also known for debugging systems remotely by having the person on the phone toggle in hexadecimal via front panel switches of early computers to correct problems. [11]
Initially, Gates put Allchin in charge of revamping LAN Manager, using his networking expertise. However, Allchin scrapped the project, citing the need to start fresh.
Allchin's first high-profile project at Microsoft was the Cairo technology, which was intended to add on to Windows NT to create the next version of the operating system. [12] At the NT Developer Conference in July 1992, Allchin gave a presentation about the future Microsoft operating system. One of the main goals for Cairo was the ability for users to locate files based on their content as opposed to their name. Users would also have access to files stored on other machines on a network as easily as they had access to files on their own hard drives. Cairo was scheduled to ship as a single package in 1994. After several delays, it was finally released in pieces; the technology was shipped in successive operating system releases. [9] The Cairo and Windows NT groups were combined, and Allchin created a new client and server organization focused on business and IT users. Allchin replaced Dave Cutler as the lead developer on Windows NT version 3.5 onwards. [5] This led to conflict with Vice President Brad Silverberg, who was in charge of the development of Windows 95, the operating system which was aimed at the personal computer market as opposed to Windows NT's business computer market. Allchin and Silverberg also came into conflict over whether Windows or Internet Explorer should be Microsoft's flagship product, and Allchin eventually won despite Silverberg's promotion of IE. [13]
In 1999, Microsoft re-organized its corporate structure. The Consumer Division, which maintained versions of Windows for home users and the Business & Enterprise Division, which maintained Windows NT, were combined into a single operating system division: the Platform Group. Allchin became the vice president of the new combined group. This promotion put him in charge of the development of both the home and business versions of Windows. With the release of Windows XP in 2001, both business and client versions of the operating system utilized the same code base. The server business grew substantially during this period of time. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Allchin fostered an environment of transparency in the Windows division, with the company providing the public with regular updates on the development process. [18]
Allchin was diagnosed with cancer in late 2002 and took a leave of absence for part of 2003. He recovered from the illness, which changed his perspective on life. He decided at that time to retire from Microsoft, [7] although Gates suggested that Allchin stay with the company for a while longer.
On September 20, 2005, Microsoft announced that Allchin would become co-president of a new Platform Products and Services Group, which combined the old Platform Group, Server and Tools Group, and the MSN Group. Microsoft also announced that Allchin would retire after Windows Vista shipped, leaving Kevin Johnson as the president. [19]
Allchin was a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Microsoft – a small group responsible for developing Microsoft's core direction along with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates. He was claimed to be blunt, technical, and "straightforward." Bill Gates complimented him:
"He's a brilliant technologist, visionary, and a strong leader." [9]
According to exhibits filed in 2006 by the plaintiff in the case of Comes v. Microsoft , Allchin wrote a memo to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in January 2004, one which was critical of Microsoft and Longhorn. The letter said that Gates and Ballmer had lost their way and compared them to Apple who he believed had not.
I am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems our customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products. I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.... Apple did not lose their way.... [20]
Allchin was also critical of Microsoft relaxing its requirements for computers to carry the 'Vista Capable' badge. The seal, designed to inform customers of a computer's ability to run the Windows Vista operating system, was not initially intended for computers running Intel's 915 chipset. This was overturned, however, after Intel voiced their dissatisfaction with the decision. In an email to Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Allchin wrote:
I believe we are going to be misleading customers with the Capable program. OEMs will say a machine is Capable and customers will believe that it will run all the core Vista features. ...We must avoid confusion. It is wrong for customers. [21]
Running the most profitable product areas within Microsoft caused Allchin to be involved in many controversies and disputes along with his business and technical leadership responsibilities.
Brad Silverberg, the Microsoft executive who had been responsible for Windows 95, emailed several people in Microsoft September 27, 1991:
... after IBM announces support for DR-DOS at comdex, it's a small step for them to also announce they will be selling NetWare Lite, maybe sometime soon thereafter. but count on it. We don't know precisely what ibm is going to announce. my best hunch is that they will offer dr-dos as the preferred solution for 286, os 2 2.0 for 386. they will also probably continue to offer msdos at $165 (drdos for $99). drdos has problems running windows today, and I assume will have more problems in the future. [22] [23]
Jim Allchin replied:
You should make sure it has problems in the future. :-) [22] [23]
During the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial, emails sent by Allchin to other Microsoft executives were considered as an evidence by the government lawyers to back up their claim that the integration of Internet Explorer and Windows had more to do with their competition with Netscape Communications Corporation than innovation. [5]
During the Caldera v. Microsoft case, emails from Allchin to Bill Gates were introduced as an evidence. One email, from September 1991, included Allchin telling Gates that "We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger." [24]
In August 1998, Allchin asked an engineer named Vinod Valloppillil to analyse the open source movement and the Linux operating system. Valloppillil wrote two memos which were intended for Senior Vice-President Paul Maritz who was the most senior executive at that time after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Both memos were leaked and popularly known as the Halloween documents. [5]
On September 29, 1998, Allchin was deposed to respond to the testimony of Professor Edward Felten. Later he testified in court from February 1 to 4, 1999. Some of his testimony centered on the possibilities of removing Internet Explorer as stated by Felten. While Allchin proved his written testimony was correct in court, [25] a video-taped demonstration created by Microsoft attorneys, which supposedly illustrated Allchin's points, was shown to be misleading. [25] David Boies believed it was an avoidable mistake made by the Microsoft attorneys. [25]
In May 2002, Allchin testified before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly during the settlement hearing between Microsoft and the nine states (as well as the District of Columbia) involved in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial. Allchin was called to testify on two issues, the first of which gained the most publicity. In relation to the issue of sharing technical API and protocol information used throughout Microsoft products, which the states were seeking, Allchin's testimony discussed how releasing certain information could increase the security risk to consumers. [26]
It is no exaggeration to say that the national security is also implicated by the efforts of hackers to break into computing networks. Computers, including many running Windows operating systems, are used throughout the United States Department of Defense and by the armed forces of the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Today, Allchin devotes his time to music, technology, and charity work. [27] He released his first album, Enigma, in 2009 [28] calling the album a beta test. Then in September 2011, Allchin released his first widely distributed blues-themed album: Overclocked . The album Q.E.D. was released in September 2013 and Decisions followed in June 2017. Prime Blues , his latest album was released September 2018. Overclocked, [29] [30] [31] [32] Q.E.D., [33] [34] [35] [36] and Decisions [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] all received widespread acclaim especially for Allchin's guitar work. Overclocked, Q.E.D., and Decisions were featured on iTunes as New and Noteworthy and all reached in the top 10 on Internet Blues Radio. Decisions was the No. 1 Blues Album in Washington State for 18 weeks starting in June 2017. [45] And Decisions was in the 10 top Blues Rock albums nationally for 14 weeks. [46] Prime Blues remained in the top 10 Blues Albums on the national Roots Music charts for 18 straight weeks, staying in the number 1 position for 2 weeks. Prime Blues was the number 1 Contemporary Blues Album nationally for 11 weeks. [47]
Microsoft Windows was announced by Bill Gates on 10 November 1983, 2 years before it was first released. Microsoft introduced Windows as a graphical user interface for MS-DOS, which had been introduced two years earlier. The product line evolved in the 1990s from an operating environment into a fully complete, modern operating system over two lines of development, each with their own separate codebase.
Microsoft Windows is a product line of proprietary graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and sub-families that cater to particular sectors of the computing industry – Windows (unqualified) for a consumer or corporate workstation, Windows Server for a server and Windows IoT for an embedded system. Defunct families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, and Windows Embedded Compact.
Steven Anthony Ballmer is an American businessman and investor who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is a co-founder of Ballmer Group, a philanthropic investment company.
Microsoft Bob was a Microsoft software product intended to provide a more user-friendly interface for the Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, supplanting the Windows Program Manager. The program was released on March 11, 1995 and discontinued in early 1996. Microsoft Bob presented screens showing a house, with rooms that the user could visit containing familiar objects corresponding to computer applications, such as a desk with pen and paper and a checkbook. Clicking on the pen and paper would open the system's word processor.
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly three years earlier. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time. Windows 7 remained an operating system for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs, and itself was replaced in November 2012 by Windows 8, the name spanning more than three years of the product.
Cairo was the codename for a project at Microsoft from 1991 to 1996. Its charter was to build technologies for a next-generation operating system that would fulfill Bill Gates's vision of "information at your fingertips." Cairo never shipped, although portions of its technologies have since appeared in other products.
Mark "Zibo" Joseph Zbikowski is a former Microsoft Architect and an early computer hacker. He started working at the company only a few years after its inception, leading efforts in MS-DOS, OS/2, Cairo and Windows NT. In 2006, he was honored for 25 years of service with the company, the third employee to reach this milestone, after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. He retired the same year from Microsoft.
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on November 8, 2006, and over the following two months, it was released in stages to business customers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released internationally and was made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; it is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform.
Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) was a series of conferences for software developers; the conference was held infrequently to coincide with beta releases of the Windows operating system, and showcased topics of interest to those developing hardware and software for the new version of Windows.
Microsoft is a multinational computer technology corporation. Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its current best-selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system; Microsoft Office, a suite of productivity software; Xbox, a line of entertainment of games, music, and video; Bing, a line of search engines; and Microsoft Azure, a cloud services platform.
The development of Windows Vista began in May 2001, prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and continuing until November 2006.
Windows Easy Transfer was a specialized file-transfer program developed by Microsoft that allowed users of the Windows operating system to transfer personal files and settings from a computer running an earlier version of Windows to a computer running a newer version.
The blue screen of death is a critical error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows and ReactOS operating systems when a serious system error occurs. It indicates a system crash, in which the operating system reached a critical condition where it can no longer operate safely.
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993, and it lives on today, as the latest version of Windows, 11, includes its technology.
Control-Alt-Delete is a computer keyboard command on IBM PC compatible computers, invoked by pressing the Delete key while holding the Control and Alt keys: Ctrl+Alt+Delete. The function of the key combination differs depending on the context but it generally interrupts or facilitates interrupting a function. For instance, in pre-boot environment or in MS-DOS, Windows 3.0 and earlier versions of Windows or OS/2, the key combination reboots the computer. Starting with Windows 95, the key combination invokes a task manager or security related component that facilitates ending a Windows session or killing a frozen application.
Overclocked is the first widely available studio album by American blues rock musician and computer scientist Jim Allchin. It was released on September 13, 2011 by Sandy Key Music. The title of the album and first track is a reference to overclocking – deliberately increasing the clock speed of a CPU past the rated amount – resulting in a faster system while generating increased heat often requiring additional cooling.
Q.E.D. is the second widely available studio album by American blues rock musician and computer scientist Jim Allchin. It was released on September 10, 2013 by Sandy Key Music. The title of the album is a reference to quod erat demonstrandum or Q.E.D which is sometimes used to denote the completion of a mathematical proof.
Decisions is the third widely available studio album by American blues rock musician and computer scientist Jim Allchin. It was released on June 16, 2017 by Sandy Key Music. The title of the album is a reference to the decisions we make in our life about identity, relationships, and how to live life authentically.
Moshe Dunie is an Israeli-born American executive and investor in the Greater Seattle Area best known for his executive roles at Microsoft in 1988–1999, culminating as Vice President of the Windows Division. Moshe Dunie is serving on the Board of Governors of the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. Dunie served as the president of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Seattle from 2006–2009 and served on the American Jewish Committee National Board. In his role, Dunie interacted with political and business leaders around the world promoting human rights. At Microsoft, Moshe Dunie was responsible for the releases of Windows NT 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 partnering with Dave Cutler. Then as VP of the Windows Operating System Division, Moshe Dunie led the teams that delivered Windows 98, and took Windows 2000 to its final beta release. Moshe Dunie oversaw over 3,000 full-time division engineers and 1,500 contractors. He collaborated with partners such as Intel, PC OEMs, application developers and enterprise customers, initiating a Rapid Deployment Program and extensive beta testing. Microsoft Israel R&D centre and engineering groups in Europe and Asia reported to Dunie as an international extension of the Windows division.