James Allchin
Encyclopedia
James "Jim" Edward Allchin (born in Grand Rapids
, Michigan
in 1951) is a former executive at Microsoft
, where he was responsible for many of the platform components from Microsoft including Microsoft Windows
, Windows Server, server products such as SQL Server, and developer technologies. He may be most known for building Microsoft's server business. After sixteen years at Microsoft, Allchin retired in early 2007 - on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista
operating system
to consumers. 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 through the years such as Technical Excellence Person of Year in 2001. Allchin is now a professional musician.
, in 1951. While he was still an infant, the family moved to Keysville, Florida, where his parents worked on a farm. Later Allchin and his older brother Keith also worked on the farm to help the family's finances.
While fixing equipment on the farm, Allchin developed an interest in engineering. He briefly studied electrical engineering at the University of Florida
but dropped out to play in a number of bands. However he returned to the university and graduated with a B.S.
in Computer Science in 1973.
He then joined Texas Instruments
, where he helped build a new operating system
. He then followed a former lecturer, Dick Kiger, to Wyoming
, where he helped start a company that provided computer services nationwide, before moving on to another company in Dallas, Texas
.
Allchin returned to his studies, gaining an M.S.
in Computer Science from Stanford University
in 1980. While studying towards a Ph.D.
in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology
in the early eighties, he was the architect of the Clouds distributed object-oriented operating system; his thesis was entitled "An Architecture for Reliable Decentralized Systems".
In 1983, Allchin was recruited to Banyan
by founder Dave Mahoney, eventually rising through the company to the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. During his seven years at Banyan, he was the principal architect of the VINES
distributed operating system, including the StreetTalk directory protocol.
For a year, Bill Gates
tried to recruit a reluctant Allchin to join Microsoft, finally persuading him in 1990 by telling him that whatever he created would reach a wider customer base through Microsoft than through anyone else.
Allchin is known as a prolific computer programmer/engineer. There are stories about Allchin debugging systems remotely by having the person on the phone toggle in hexadecimal via the front panel switches of early computers to correct problems.
Allchin's first high-profile project at Microsoft was the Cairo
operating system that was originally intended to replace Windows NT
. 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 that users would be able to locate files based on their content, not only 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 originally scheduled to ship in total in 1994 but was delayed repeatedly and then instead pieces of the technology were shipped in successive operating system releases.
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 on Windows NT development from version 3.5 onwards. This led to conflict with another Vice President, Brad Silverberg
, who was in charge of the development of Windows 95
, the operating system that was aimed at the personal computer market as opposed to Windows NT's business computer market.
In 1999, Microsoft re-organized its corporate structure. The Consumer Division that maintained versions of Windows for home users and the Business & Enterprise Division that maintained Windows NT were combined into a single operating system division, the Platform Group. Allchin became Group Vice President of the new combined group meaning he was now responsible for managing the development of both versions of Windows. Finally with the release of Windows XP in 2001, both business and client versions of the operating system were based on the same code base. During this time the Server business grew hugely.
On September 20, 2005 Microsoft announced that Allchin would become co-president, with Kevin Johnson, of a new Platform Products and Services Group that combines the old Platform Group, Server and Tools Group and the MSN Group. Microsoft also announced that Allchin would be retiring after Windows Vista
ships, leaving Kevin Johnson as president.
Bill Gates summarized Allchin: Allchin was a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Microsoft—the small group responsible for developing Microsoft's core direction along with Steve Ballmer
and Bill Gates. He was known to be blunt, technical, and straightforward.
During the United States v. Microsoft
antitrust trial, emails sent by Allchin to other Microsoft executives were entered as 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.
During the Caldera v. Microsoft case, emails from Allchin to Bill Gates were introduced as evidence. One email from September 1991, included Allchin telling Gates that, "We need to slaughter Novell
before they get stronger."
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 that were intended for Senior Vice-President Paul Maritz
(at the time, the most senior executive after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer
). Both memos leaked and became known as the Halloween documents
.
On September 29, 1998, Allchin was deposed to respond to the testimony of Professor Edward Felten
. He later testified in court from February 1 to February 4, 1999. Some of his testimony centered on whether Internet Explorer could be removed as stated by Felten or not. While ultimately Allchin proved his written testimony was correct in court, a video-taped demonstration created by Microsoft Attorneys supposedly illustrating Allchin's points was shown to have been misleading. David Boies believed it was an honest Microsoft Attorney mistake, but avoidable nevertheless.
In May 2002, Allchin testified before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly during the settlement hearing between Microsoft and the nine states and the District of Columbia, resulting from the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial. Allchin was called to testify on two issues, however it was the first that 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 testimony discussed how releasing certain information could increase the security risk to consumers.
According to exhibits filed in 2006 by the plaintiff in the case Comes v. Microsoft, Allchin wrote a memo in January 2004 to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer that was critical of Microsoft and Longhorn, saying that they had lost their way and comparing them to Apple whom he believed had not.
Allchin was also found to be critical of Microsoft relaxing its requirements for PCs to carry the 'Vista Capable' badge. The seal, designed to inform customers of a PC'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:
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
in 1951) is a former executive at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, where he was responsible for many of the platform components from Microsoft including Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Windows Server, server products such as SQL Server, and developer technologies. He may be most known for building Microsoft's server business. After sixteen years at Microsoft, Allchin retired in early 2007 - on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
to consumers. He is also known for his leading role in the architecture and development of the directory services technology Banyan VINES
Banyan VINES
Banyan VINES was a computer network operating system and the set of computer network protocols it used to talk to client machines on the network. The Banyan company based the VINES operating system on Unix, and the network protocols on the archetypical Xerox XNS stack...
. He has won numerous awards through the years such as Technical Excellence Person of Year in 2001. Allchin is now a professional musician.
Early years
Allchin was born to a poor family in Grand Rapids, MichiganGrand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
, in 1951. While he was still an infant, the family moved to Keysville, Florida, where his parents worked on a farm. Later Allchin and his older brother Keith also worked on the farm to help the family's finances.
While fixing equipment on the farm, Allchin developed an interest in engineering. He briefly studied electrical engineering at the University of Florida
University of Florida
The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...
but dropped out to play in a number of bands. However he returned to the university and graduated with a B.S.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in Computer Science in 1973.
He then joined Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
, where he helped build a new operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. He then followed a former lecturer, Dick Kiger, to Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
, where he helped start a company that provided computer services nationwide, before moving on to another company in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
.
Allchin returned to his studies, gaining an M.S.
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in Computer Science from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1980. While studying towards a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a public research university in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States...
in the early eighties, he was the architect of the Clouds distributed object-oriented operating system; his thesis was entitled "An Architecture for Reliable Decentralized Systems".
In 1983, Allchin was recruited to Banyan
Banyan (company)
Banyan Systems, Inc. was founded in 1983 by David C. Mahoney, a software engineer and mid-level manager at Data General, Larry Floryan and Anand Jagannathan. The company's distinctive logo, a Banyan tree, and the logo's allegorical representation of Banyan's product suite, VINES, were conceived by...
by founder Dave Mahoney, eventually rising through the company to the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. During his seven years at Banyan, he was the principal architect of the VINES
Banyan VINES
Banyan VINES was a computer network operating system and the set of computer network protocols it used to talk to client machines on the network. The Banyan company based the VINES operating system on Unix, and the network protocols on the archetypical Xerox XNS stack...
distributed operating system, including the StreetTalk directory protocol.
For a year, Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
tried to recruit a reluctant Allchin to join Microsoft, finally persuading him in 1990 by telling him that whatever he created would reach a wider customer base through Microsoft than through anyone else.
Allchin is known as a prolific computer programmer/engineer. There are stories about Allchin debugging systems remotely by having the person on the phone toggle in hexadecimal via the front panel switches of early computers to correct problems.
Microsoft
Initially Microsoft put Allchin in charge of revamping the Local Area Network Manager, using his networking expertise. In fact, he did away with the project entirely. "This is never going to work. You have to shut it down. Shut it down. Take the whole thing down." Allchin emphasized the need to start fresh.Allchin's first high-profile project at Microsoft was the Cairo
Cairo (operating system)
Cairo was the code name 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' vision of "information at your fingertips." Cairo never shipped, although portions of its technologies have since...
operating system that was originally intended to replace Windows NT
Windows NT
Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
. 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 that users would be able to locate files based on their content, not only 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 originally scheduled to ship in total in 1994 but was delayed repeatedly and then instead pieces of the technology were shipped in successive operating system releases.
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
Dave Cutler
David Neil Cutler, Sr. is an American software engineer, designer and developer of several operating systems including RSX-11M, VMS and VAXELN at Digital Equipment Corporation and Windows at Microsoft.- Personal history :...
as the lead on Windows NT development from version 3.5 onwards. This led to conflict with another Vice President, Brad Silverberg
Brad Silverberg
Brad Silverberg is most noted for his work at Microsoft in 1990–1999 as Senior VP and product manager for MS-DOS, Windows, Internet Explorer, and Office...
, who was in charge of the development of Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
, the operating system that was aimed at the personal computer market as opposed to Windows NT's business computer market.
In 1999, Microsoft re-organized its corporate structure. The Consumer Division that maintained versions of Windows for home users and the Business & Enterprise Division that maintained Windows NT were combined into a single operating system division, the Platform Group. Allchin became Group Vice President of the new combined group meaning he was now responsible for managing the development of both versions of Windows. Finally with the release of Windows XP in 2001, both business and client versions of the operating system were based on the same code base. During this time the Server business grew hugely.
On September 20, 2005 Microsoft announced that Allchin would become co-president, with Kevin Johnson, of a new Platform Products and Services Group that combines the old Platform Group, Server and Tools Group and the MSN Group. Microsoft also announced that Allchin would be retiring after Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
ships, leaving Kevin Johnson as president.
Bill Gates summarized Allchin: Allchin was a member of the Senior Leadership Team at Microsoft—the small group responsible for developing Microsoft's core direction along with Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
and Bill Gates. He was known to be blunt, technical, and straightforward.
Controversies
Running the most profitable product areas within Microsoft caused Allchin to be included in many negotiations and disputes along with his business and technical leadership responsibilities.During the United States v. Microsoft
United States v. Microsoft
United States v. Microsoft was a set of civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Section 1 and 2 on May 8, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor...
antitrust trial, emails sent by Allchin to other Microsoft executives were entered as evidence by the government lawyers to back up their claim that the integration of Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
and Windows had more to do with their competition with Netscape Communications Corporation than innovation.
During the Caldera v. Microsoft case, emails from Allchin to Bill Gates were introduced as evidence. One email from September 1991, included Allchin telling Gates that, "We need to slaughter Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
before they get stronger."
In August 1998, Allchin asked an engineer named Vinod Valloppillil to analyse the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
movement and the Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
operating system. Valloppillil wrote two memos that were intended for Senior Vice-President Paul Maritz
Paul Maritz
Paul Maritz is CEO of VMware Corporation , and a past senior executive at Microsoft.Born and raised in Rhodesia , his family later moved to South Africa where he was schooled at Highbury Preparatory School and Hilton College. He received a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Natal,...
(at the time, the most senior executive after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
). Both memos leaked and became known as the Halloween documents
Halloween documents
The Halloween documents comprise a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to free software, open-source software, and to Linux in particular, and a series of responses to these memoranda...
.
On September 29, 1998, Allchin was deposed to respond to the testimony of Professor Edward Felten
Edward Felten
Edward William Felten is a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University. On November 4, 2010 he was named the Chief Technologist for the United States Federal Trade Commission, a position he officially assumed January 3, 2011.Felten has done a variety of computer...
. He later testified in court from February 1 to February 4, 1999. Some of his testimony centered on whether Internet Explorer could be removed as stated by Felten or not. While ultimately Allchin proved his written testimony was correct in court, a video-taped demonstration created by Microsoft Attorneys supposedly illustrating Allchin's points was shown to have been misleading. David Boies believed it was an honest Microsoft Attorney mistake, but avoidable nevertheless.
In May 2002, Allchin testified before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly during the settlement hearing between Microsoft and the nine states and the District of Columbia, resulting from the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial. Allchin was called to testify on two issues, however it was the first that gained the most publicity. In relation to the issue of sharing technical API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
and protocol information used throughout Microsoft products, which the states were seeking, Allchin testimony discussed how releasing certain information could increase the security risk to consumers.
According to exhibits filed in 2006 by the plaintiff in the case Comes v. Microsoft, Allchin wrote a memo in January 2004 to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer that was critical of Microsoft and Longhorn, saying that they had lost their way and comparing them to Apple whom he believed had not.
Allchin was also found to be critical of Microsoft relaxing its requirements for PCs to carry the 'Vista Capable' badge. The seal, designed to inform customers of a PC'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:
Post Microsoft - Musician
Today, Allchin devotes his time to music and charity. Allchin writes and performs music (www.jimallchin.com). He released his first album titled Enigma in 2009. He is quoted as saying it was like a beta test. In September 2011 Allchin released a second blues album Overclocked to wide spread acclaim in the Blues community (see quotes at http://www.jimallchin.com/press). Some follow.External links
- Channel 9 Interview with Jim Allchin, August 2005