James Allchin
James Edward Allchin (born in
Grand Rapids,
Michigan in
1951) is co-President of the Platform Products and Services Group at
Microsoft, responsible for Microsoft's operating systems,
streaming media products and
Internet services.
Allchin was born to a poor family in
Grand Rapids, Michigan, 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 farm equipment, 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 BSc in Computer Science in
1973.
He then found a job at
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 MSc 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 by
Dave Mahoney to join
Banyan, 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'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
1994 but was delayed repeatedly and then, when interest started to grow in the Internet, Microsoft re-focused their attention there and work on Cairo was shelved.
After the demise of Cairo, Allchin replaced
David 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-organised 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.
On
September 20 2005 Microsoft announced another corporate re-structure. Allchin will be 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 will be retiring at the end of
2006, after
Windows Vista ships, leaving Kevin Johnson as president.
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 was more to do with their competition with
Netscape Communications Corporation than innovation.
In
1991, Allchin was cited as saying, "We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger."
In August
1998, Allchin asked an engineer named
Vinod Valloppillil to analyse the threat to the Windows platform from 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. Most of his testimony centered around video-taped demonstrations that were exhibited in Microsoft's defense, and later found to have been falsified.
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 alleged that releasing this information would increase the security risk to consumers.
"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."In May
2004, Judge J. Frederick Motz ordered Microsoft to investigate
Burst.com's claim that, in
2000, Allchin ordered Microsoft employees to destroy email after 30 days and not to archive their email, suggesting that this deletion policy might be an effort to eliminate material that would later be damaging in court. This case was settled out of court in March
2005, with Microsoft agreeing to pay Burst.com $60 million for nonexclusive rights to Burst.com's media player software.
* Allchin, James Edward (1982).
A suite of algorithms for maintaining replicated date using weak correctness conditions. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YHLIY.
* Allchin, James Edward (1982).
Object-based synchronization and recovery. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YLEL4.
* Allchin, James Edward (1983).
Support for objects and actions in CLOUDS: Status Report. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YHLI4.
* Allchin, James Edward (1983).
An architecture for reliable decentralized systems. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YIFDY.
* Allchin, James Edward (1983).
Facilities for supporting atomicity in operating systems. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YHLQG.
* Allchin, James Edward (1983).
How to shadow a shadow. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B00071W5PA.
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*
Microsoft: Jim Allchin biography*
Channel 9 Interview with Jim Allchin, August 2005
