Brian Valentine Microsoft Windows Vista Animal House spoof

Brian Valentine can certainly take a hint. Reassigned to "a new role ... in another (unspecified) area of the company," the 19-year Microsoft veteran has left the Redmond company to join Amazon.com. Valentine, who led Windows development since 1998 (and made a regrettable appearance as Bluto Blutarsky in a Microsoft parody of Animal House), put in his last day at Microsoft on Friday and will start work as a senior vice president at the retailer later this month. Valentine's departure isn't much of surprise, really, but it does make one wonder about further changes in Microsoft's platform division. "Change is in the air," writes Jupiter analyst Joe Wilcox. "I expect the [division's] new leadership will increase accountability and put in place processes designed to get products out in a more timely manner. The effects of these changes already are materializing. How the approach syncs with Microsoft's developer culture is uncertain, however. But I expect that Brian won't be the only Microsoft employee going elsewhere. Disruption is the nature of change."

bluto: bv

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