Scott Guthrie would be great for the role. He's one of the few people I've met that is actually an exceptionally good developer, understands vision, and has strong leadership skills.
I have heard the knock that he is a bit "empire" focused. But moving him to CSA would force him to view the company as his empire rather than an org.
I agree. ScottGu both has the technical chops and the ability to ask hard questions. I had the opportunity to work directly with him (and his many-managers-ago lead, Mark) and have nothing but respect for him.
A return to the CSA role could be just what the company needs. "Back in the day," BillG reviews meant something. Your product could be completely shelved, and even though you could argue it was a huge waste of time for the team, it forced much harder thinking about every area of your product because you just never knew what he was going to ask about and expect you to have in-depth, well-researched answers about.
I always thought Ray was too nice and too high-level-vision of a guy to be in the role he was titled with. There's a reason you don't make the nicest guy in the platoon the next drill sergeant, no matter how well they do on the procedural tests and describing the goals of the next version of your military.
I should be clear, I've also heard he is very nice and the guy that you want to work for. But I've also heard that he's not afraid of replicating another groups work if he doesn't like how its done. Of course this is all second and third hand, and maybe "empire" was the wrong term. But my point was that with all of MS under him, he would push to consolidate redundant projects, rather than taking them head-on.
>But my point was that with all of MS under him, he would push to consolidate redundant projects, rather than taking them head-on.
Which is something Microsoft desperately needs, IMO. Just look at their mobile division -- WM6.x, WP7, and the Kin were projects that should have drawn from Microsoft's strengths and just went totally disparate directions. In the Kin's case, Microsoft spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring Danger Inc only to totally squander the Sidekick brand, drive off many of the developers from the acquisition, and then ultimately ditch the entire project shortly after launch.
Then you have things like how they're only just now trying to integrate Zune into their handset strategy after they've all but killed that brand, as well.
Microsoft has just struck me as an incredibly schizophrenic company for some time now. They tend to develop multiple overlapping technologies that really ought to be approached as a single platform, but at the same time try to shoehorn their existing technologies into places where they just aren't going to work.
Frankly, what Microsoft desperately needs is somebody that can step in, say "this is going to be the Microsoft Way of handling X" and get the company on the war path. Microsoft owns so many genuinely great technologies that it's almost heartbreaking to see the way they perpetually fail to come up with any real, cohesive way of bringing it all together.
I have heard the knock that he is a bit "empire" focused. But moving him to CSA would force him to view the company as his empire rather than an org.