Stefan Mileschin

Antoine Leblond has announced that he is leaving Microsoft after working there for nearly a quarter of a century.

Leblond was a close chum of Windows chief Steven Sinofsky who cleaned out his desk after Windows 8 was released. However, he stayed even though CEO Steve Ballmer announced his "One Microsoft" strategy which left many of Sinofsky's close colleagues with unclear roles in the Microsoft Volehill.

Soon after announcing his cunning plan, Ballmer also quit and was replaced by Satya Nadella who was promoted to CEO in February.

Everything seemed to calm down a bit so Leblond's announcement came as a surprise – although it is more of a surprise that it did not come sooner. He was one of the last of Sinofsky's chums still in Redmond and it looks like that faction has gone the way of the Starks in Game of Thrones.

Leblond spent most of his Vole years working closely with Sinofsky and for the first 20 years that was on Microsoft Office and recently worked on building the Windows Store and cloud services for Windows 8.

http://news.techeye.net/business/leb...osoft-volehill