James "Jim" Edward Allchin (born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1951) and once known as "The Father of StreetTalk" for his pioneering work with directory services called the Virtual Networking System, or VINES at Banyan Company, Allchin is a former executive at Microsoft, where he was accountable for leading the development of a number of Microsoft's operating systems, streaming media products and Internet services. A key player in the development VINES, Alchin helped port much of the functionality of VINES over to Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system. Working for Microsoft for over 16 years, Allchin retired in early 2007 - on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers.

Biography

Early years

Allchin was born to a poor family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1951. While he was still an infant, the family moved to Keysville, Florida, where his parents worked on a farm. Later Allchin and his older brother Keith also worked on the farm to help the family's finances.

While fixing farm equipment, Allchin developed an interest in engineering. He briefly studied electrical engineering at the University of Florida but dropped out to play in a number of bands. However he returned to the university and graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science in 1973.

He then found a job at Texas Instruments, where he helped build a new operating system. He then followed a former lecturer, Dick Kiger, to Wyoming, where he helped start a company that provided computer services nationwide, before moving on to another company in Dallas, Texas.

Allchin returned to his studies, gaining an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1980. While studying towards a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology in the early eighties, he was the architect of the Clouds distributed object-oriented operating system; his thesis was entitled "An Architecture for Reliable Decentralized Systems".

In 1983, Allchin was recruited to Banyan by founder Dave Mahoney, eventually rising through the company to the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. During his seven years at Banyan, he was the principal architect of the VINES distributed operating system, including the StreetTalk directory protocol.

For a year, Bill Gates tried to recruit a reluctant Allchin to join Microsoft, finally persuading him in 1990 by telling him that whatever he created would reach a wider customer base through Microsoft than through anyone else.

Microsoft

Initially Microsoft put Allchin in charge of revamping the Local Area Network Manager, using his networking expertise. In fact, he did away with the project entirely. "This is never going to work. You have to shut it down. Shut it down. Take the whole thing down." Allchin emphasized the need to start fresh: "We have to blow it up."

Allchin's first high-profile project at Microsoft was the Cairo operating system that was originally intended to replace Windows NT. At the NT Developer Conference in July 1992, Allchin gave a presentation about the future Microsoft operating system. One of the main goals for Cairo was that users would be able to locate files based on their content, not only their name. Users would also have access to files stored on other machines on a network as easily as they had access to files on their own hard drives. Cairo was originally scheduled to ship in 1994 but was delayed frequently and then, when interest started to grow in the Internet, Microsoft re-focused their attention there and work on Cairo was shelved.

After the demise of Cairo, Allchin replaced Dave Cutler as the lead on Windows NT development from version 3.5 onwards. This led to conflict with another Vice President, Brad Silverberg, who was in charge of the development of Windows 95, the operating system that was aimed at the personal computer market as opposed to Windows NT's business computer market.

In 1999, Microsoft re-organised its corporate structure. The Consumer Division that maintained versions of Windows for home users and the Business & Enterprise Division that maintained Windows NT were combined into a single operating system division, the Platform Group. Allchin became Group Vice President of the new combined group meaning he was now accountable for managing the development of both versions of Windows.

On September 20, 2005 Microsoft announced another corporate re-structure. Allchin would be co-president, with Kevin Johnson, of a new Platform Products and Services Group that combines the old Platform Group, Server and Tools Group and the MSN Group. Microsoft also announced that Allchin would be retiring at the end of 2006, after Windows Vista ships, leaving Kevin Johnson as president, although this did not happen until January 30, 2007, the day that Vista actually shipped.

Controversies

During the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial, emails sent by Allchin to other Microsoft executives were entered as evidence by the government lawyers to back up their claim that the integration of Internet Explorer and Windows was more to do with their competition with Netscape Communications Corporation than innovation.

During the Caldera v. Microsoft case, emails from Allchin to Bill Gates were introduced as evidence. One email from September 1991, included Allchin telling Gates that, "We need to slaughter Novell before they get stronger."

In August 1998, Allchin asked an engineer named Vinod Valloppillil to analyse the threat to the Windows platform from the open source movement and the Linux operating system. Valloppillil wrote two memos that were intended for Senior Vice-President Paul Maritz (at the time, the most senior executive after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer). Both memos leaked and became known as the Halloween documents.

On September 29, 1998, Allchin was deposed to respond to the testimony of Professor Edward Felten. He later testified in court from February 1 to February 4, 1999. Most of his testimony centered on video-taped demonstrations that were exhibited in Microsoft's defense, and later found to have been falsified.

In May 2002, Allchin testified before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly during the settlement hearing between Microsoft and the nine states and the District of Columbia, resulting from the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial. Allchin was called to testify on two issues, however it was the first that gained the most publicity. In relation to the issue of sharing technical API and protocol information used throughout Microsoft products, which the states were seeking, Allchin alleged that releasing this information would increase the security risk to consumers.

In May 2004, Judge J. Frederick Motz ordered Microsoft to investigate Burst.com's claim that, in 2000, Allchin ordered Microsoft employees to destroy email after 30 days and not to archive their email, suggesting that this deletion policy might be an effort to eliminate material that would later be damaging in court. This case was settled out of court in March 2005, with Microsoft agreeing to pay Burst.com $60 million for nonexclusive rights to Burst.com's media player software.

According to exhibits filed in 2006 by the plaintiff in the case Comes v. Microsoft, Allchin wrote a memo in January 2004 to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer that was critical of Microsoft and Longhorn, saying that they had lost their way and comparing them to Apple whom he believed had not.

Bibliography

Allchin, James Edward (1982). A suite of algorithms for maintaining replicated data using weak correctness conditions. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YHLIY.

Allchin, James Edward (1982). Object-based synchronization and recovery. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YLEL4.

Allchin, James Edward (1983). Support for objects and actions in CLOUDS: Status Report. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YHLI4.

Allchin, James Edward (1983). An architecture for reliable decentralized systems. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YIFDY.

Allchin, James Edward (1983). Facilities for supporting atomicity in operating systems. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B0006YHLQG.

Allchin, James Edward (1983). How to shadow a shadow. Georgia Institute of Technology. ISBN B00071W5PA.