Microsoft's Windows boss Steven Sinofsky is out.
It's pretty surprising news because Sinofsky was leading the most important product at Microsoft, and he was thought to be the CEO-in-waiting.
The good news for shareholders is that Microsoft sheds executives like a snake sheds its skin.
We have a list of the top executives who have jump from Microsoft since the start of the Ballmer era and where they've landed.
Paul Maritz: Chief Strategist at EMC, Formerly CEO of VMWare
A lot of Microsoft insiders look back at the departure of Paul Maritz in 2000 as the beginning of Microsoft's brain drain. Maritz was influential in Microsoft's early days, and at one point had control over nearly all Microsoft products, but his duties were gradually reduced after Steve Ballmer became President and later CEO.
In 2008, Maritz became CEO of VMWare, one of Microsoft's most important enterprise software competitors -- VMWare's virtualization software can reduce the amount of hardware and Microsoft software that companies need to run their data centers. He recently became the chief strategist at EMC, VMWare's parent company.
Greg Maffei: Liberty Media CEO
Maffei worked in finance at Microsoft in the 1990s, and was the company's CFO from 1997 through 2000. He left to become CEO of John Malone's cable and media company Liberty Media, where he was reportedly the highest-paid executive in the US in 2009, earning $87.5 million.
Nathan Myhrvold: Intellectual Ventures founder
Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold started at Microsoft in 1986, was one of the closest advisors to Bill Gates, and was instrumental in starting Microsoft Research. He left in 2000 to form IP holding company Intellectual Ventures, which collects patents and then tries to capitalize on them by funding inventions or seeking licensing deals -- for instance, Samsung and HTC recently licensed the entire Intellectual Ventures portfolio to help protect themselves from Android-related IP litigation. He is reportedly still close with Gates.
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