Microsoft's Cortana Boss Javier Soltero Is Leaving the Company

Corporate Vice President of Cortana Javier Soltero is leaving the company after being in charge of Cortana for less than a year. 'Soltero joined Microsoft when it bought at the end of 2014 Acompli, a mobile mail startup in San Francisco which he co-founded and led,' reports ZDNet. 'After joining Microsoft four years ago, Soltero spearheaded Outlook Mobile, then all of Outlook.' Before being appointed to run Cortana in March of this year, he was the head of strategy for Office. From the report: Last month, Microsoft officials confirmed that Cortana was one of the technologies that management was moving from AI + Research to the Experiences & Devices team, which is under Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha. Microsoft is in the midst of trying to reposition Cortana from a standalone digital assistant to more of an assistance aide. Given the strong focus on home and work productivity by the Microsoft 365 and Office teams, officials seemingly decided it made sense for Cortana to be situated in that group. I've heard Soltero is going to go back to doing entrepreneurial activities once he leaves by year-end. Perry Clarke is going to be working with Soltero on transition plans in the next couple of months, sources are telling me. Clarke has been with Microsoft engineering since 1996, when he led Exchange. He also has been a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer for the past several years. I've heard talk that Microsoft ultimately is looking to bring Cortana and Search together into a single engineering team.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.