ShadowRAM: September 18, 2006

Valentine was known for being straightforward or in-your-face, depending on your point of view. Whatever others thought, his team loved him, and many are upset by how it happened: They didn't like the fact that it was oh-so-helpfully announced that Brian would be in another position post-Vista.

Valentine's exit was not a surprise after the last reorg, but one source said, "It's a big loss for Microsoft, especially during the endgame of a big release."

Opinions are mixed over what's going on with Microsoft's head count. One company source expects significant cuts—up to 2,000 jobs—in both the Information Worker (aka Office) and Platforms (Windows) groups. The Office reorg eliminating a layer of managers could play into that.

But others at the company say there is zero evidence of cutbacks within the Office group in particular. Microsoft Business Division Prez Jeff Raikes recently told his peeps he will retain all the folks hired last year and that was a big number, maybe 17 percent growth over the previous year. And, this source noted, there are many other jobs still open. On the other hand, the Windows group has exploded, and it's quite possible Senior VP Steven Sinofsky will clean house.

There's absolutely no truth to rumors that Tech Data hired Bob Dutkowsky as its next CEO because he's a cheap date. That's just a coincidence.

Dutkowsky first met Tech Data's Steve Raymund and another board member in person at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport, where their flight paths happened to cross. The plan was to meet in an airport lounge and chat over a catered dinner—only dinner never showed up.

"So Steve took me for a Chinese dinner at the food court," Dutkowsky told CRN last week. "Later, I heard that some other [candidates for the CEO job] got to go to some 'chi-chi' restaurants in New York." Of course, Dutkowsky got the last laugh—and the job.

A blizzard of stats touting the Eclipse platform's rapid growth were trotted out recently at EclipseWorld, but one is particularly dear to Eclipse Executive Director Mike Milinkovich's heart: The number of bug reports filed in verse. That would be two. "One was an ode to all the things that have gone wrong, and one was a sort of haiku of about three lines saying, 'This is busted,' " Milinkovich said.

Attention, would-be poets! Shadowram would love to see a blank-verse epic—something Homeric perhaps—about Eclipse's trench warfare with .Net.