CNET is delving further into the death of the Microsoft Courier, looking at the differences between Steven Sinoksky and J Allard, who ran the Windows 8 and Courier projects respectively. They say that Sinofsky’s business-minded pragmatism and Windows 7 salvage job ultimately swayed Ballmer to follow his vision. More »
Earlier we discovered that J. Allard, the Father of the Xbox, is leaving Microsoft. This was the goodbye email he sent his team: More »
The WSJ solidifies an intriguing post by Mary Jo Foley last week that J. Allard, the guy behind the Xbox, Zune and Courier – or more formally, the Chief Experience Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft’s E&D division – is leaving after Steve Ballmer killed the Courier tablet project. More »
More details on Courier, courtesy of Mary Jo Foley: Most interestingly, her sources say it runs Windows 7 underneath, the same way the Surface actually runs on top of Vista, and that Microsoft will actually make the tablet. More »
J Allard, who most recently helped give the Xbox and the Zune a really, really good user experience has gotten a promotion to “Chief Experience Officer” of the Entertainment and Devices devision. The E&D devision, for those of you who don’t know, encompasses Xbox, Games for Windows, Mobile Communications (including Windows Mobile), Zune, Connected TV, Microsoft Surface, Mac Office, Microsoft Auto and Windows Embedded. Now that Allard is essentially going to have his fingers in all these pies, you can expect a Zune/Xbox 360-level of UI polish that projects like Windows Mobile haven’t seen before. You can’t see it, but we’re doing a fist pump now. [ZDNet]
We’re not sure why this was a policy, but J Allard famously avoided being photographed with a Zune starting from the launch last year up until this week. Seriously, go try and find a picture of him with a Zune. It’s impossible! Apparently his shame for the generation 1 product is over, since he proudly held up a Zune at the Microsoft event Tuesday. Welcome to the Social, J. More »
