WSJ.com - Technology" Simonyi Will Quit Microsoft To Form Software Venture "Charles Simonyi, one of Microsoft Corp.'s legendary programmers, is leaving after 21 years to form a start-up that hopes to change how software is created.
He is teaming up with Gregor Kiczales, a longtime researcher at Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto Research Center, a famed Silicon Valley laboratory where Mr. Simonyi also worked before joining Microsoft.
The two men are starting a company called Intentional Software Corp., which will be based in Bellevue, Wash., and will have additional employees in Hungary, Mr. Simonyi's birthplace.
Microsoft has entered into an agreement with Mr. Simonyi and the new company, which includes cross-licenses to patents and gives Microsoft an option to negotiate for rights to the start-up's developments. No money is changing hands as part of the transaction, he said."
Interesting chapter on Simonyi in Go to: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Scientists and Iconoclasts who were the Hero Programmers of the Software Revolution