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Microsoft poaches IBM software guru

Big Blue's chief architect heads for Redmond...

Tags: donald ferguson, microsoft, web 2.0, soa

By Richard Thurston

Published: 17 January 2007 08:55 GMT

Microsoft has poached IBM's chief architect as part of a recruitment drive to bring more web expertise into the company.

While at IBM, Donald Ferguson led teams that were involved in developing applications such as Tivoli, WebSphere and the Lotus range.

Ferguson has now been signed up by the Redmond giant as Technical Fellow in Platforms and Strategy, further bolstering the team being built by chief software architect Ray Ozzie.

Ozzie is himself a former IBM man, having created the Lotus Notes product from scratch.

Ozzie joined Microsoft in June 2006, immediately succeeding the then chief software architect Bill Gates.

At IBM Ferguson was instrumental in developing web 2.0, SOA (service-oriented architecture) and web services software, and co-authored many of the initial web services specifications.

Ferguson is also known to have a black belt in Kenpo karate, which he earned whilst chief architect at IBM.

Richard Thurston writes for ZDNet UK

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