Jim Allchin, the current Microsoft Co-President of the Platform and Services Division, and the Windows chief will retire following the commercial availability of Windows Vista. Microsoft's "The Wow Starts Now" marketing campaign for Windows Vista is synonymous with ending a 16-year long collaboration with the Redmond juggernaut.

But Windows Vista is just one of the products that Jim Allchin has helped build for Microsoft. In fact, just as Vista was in the development phase, Allchin was involved in the release of Windows XP Service Pack2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 x64 Editions, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 R2 (December, 2005).

Although Allchin will retire, his legacy at Microsoft will survive through the products that have received the contribution of the Windows Chief. In the fall of 2005, Microsoft announced the realigning of the company and the creation of the Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division, the Microsoft Business Division and the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division. On the same occasion, Allchin had announced that he was going to step down from his role at the end of 2006, a period that was then thought to be the commercial availability of Vista.

While retiring from Microsoft, Allchin revealed that he is most proud not of the $6 billion operating system, but of the way Microsoft's server business has evolved towards the scale of the Redmond Company's main cash cows, Windows and Office.