(2010-10-19) Ozzie Leaving Microsoft

Ray Ozzie is leaving Microsoft. According to one person familiar with the situation, Mr. Ozzie decided to quit Microsoft because "he has accomplished what he wanted to accomplish" at the company. His major contribution to Microsoft was in helping it shift the company to focus on cloud computing, in which more computing chores move into data centers rather than being executed on PCs operated by users.

Mr. Ozzie also clashed with other executives at the company, particularly Steven Sinofsky, now the president of Microsoft's MsWindows division, these people added. Mr. Ozzie appeared to lose a key battle with Mr. Sinofsky two years ago when control of Live Mesh, a data synchronization technology developed by Mr. Ozzie's team, shifted to the Windows organization at the company. Uh-oh, that familiar Microsoft game...