Jim Allchin

(Former) Co-President, Platforms & Services Division

Related Links Speeches: • Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2005 Los Angeles, Calif. Sept. 13, 2005 • Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2004 Seattle, Wash. May 4, 2004 • Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003 Los Angeles, Calif. Oct. 27, 2003 • Windows Media Center Edition 2004 Launch Redmond, Wash. Sept. 30, 2003 • 2003 Financial Analysts Meeting Redmond, Washington July 24, 2003 • .NET Briefing Day Redmond, Washington July 24, 2002 • WinHec 2002 Seattle, Washington April 16, 2002 • Windows XP Unveiling Seattle, Wash. February 13, 2001 • Windows 2000 Press Briefing Las Vegas, Nevada Novemebr 15, 1999 • NT Reviewer's Workshop Seattle, Washington August 18, 1998 • N+1 Las Vegas, Nevada May 6, 1998 • WinHec '98 Orlando, Florida March 25, 1998 • Microsoft Professional Developers Conference San Diego, California September 24, 1997 • Microsoft Windows Briefing Seattle, Washington July 23, 1997 High-Resolution Images: 300 dpi 72 dpi 300 dpi 72 dpi

After 17 years with the company, Jim Allchin retired from Microsoft as of Jan. 30, 2007 – the day on which Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers.

James (Jim) Allchin served as co-president of Microsoft's Platforms & Services Division from September 2005 until his retirement. In that position, Allchin shared overall responsibility with Kevin Johnson for the division of the company that includes the Windows and Windows Live Group, Windows Live Platform Group, Online Business Group, Market Expansion Group, Core Operating System Division, Windows Client Marketing Group, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group, and the Server and Tools Business Group.

Prior to September 2005, as group vice president of the Platforms Group, Allchin had overall responsibility for the product delivery, engineering and technical architecture for the Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft .NET, the Windows Server System and new-media technology. He was also responsible for delivering the best developer tools, framework and support to fulfill the promise of .NET. His group's mission was to build platforms software that consumers and businesses will make an integral part of their day-to-day activities.

Allchin was a member of the Senior Leadership Team, responsible for developing Microsoft's core direction along with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates.

Allchin joined Microsoft in 1990 with the initial charter of driving the company's networking product strategy. He subsequently led the development and marketing efforts for a variety of Microsoft's operating systems and other server systems.

Before joining Microsoft, Allchin helped start Banyan Systems Inc., where he was the principal architect of the VINES distributed network operating system. He spent more than seven years at Banyan, holding numerous executive management positions in development and marketing. Ultimately, he became senior vice president and chief technology officer.

While completing his doctorate in computer science in the early 1980s, Allchin was the principal architect of the Clouds distributed transactional, object-oriented operating system. Before that, he helped develop the DX series of operating systems for Texas Instruments Inc.

Allchin attended the University of Florida, Stanford University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Top of page