Microsoft Acquires Winternals Software

Wow, big news! Microsoft has acquired one of the most useful and innovative software companies ever to attempt to improve on Microsoft's products. Mark Russinovich is one of the most intelligent and creative people I have ever met. Some of the products he releases for free on the Sysinternals site are worth more than some paid products. And the Winternals products are equally impressive. Mark, if you don't know him, was the person who broke the news 10 years ago that you could turn NT Workstation into NT Server by making a simple registry change.

So this is undoubtably a good move for Microsoft, but is it a good move for Mark? The answer depends on what Microsoft lets him work on. His title is Technical Fellow, which has traditionally been a position that gets a lot of leeway in the creative process. If Mark can use his new insider influence in the same manner he has done things with Winternals, look for some very positive changes in Microsoft products, at least from the perspective of IT tools and ease of management.

Microsoft Acquires Winternals Software

Company appoints operating systems kernel expert Mark Russinovich as Technical Fellow.

Microsoft Corp. today announced the acquisition of Winternals Software LP, a privately held company based in Austin, Texas, that provides Windows®-based enterprises with systems recovery and data protection solutions in addition to offering a freeware tools Web site called Sysinternals. The addition of Winternals is a significant advance in Microsoft's promise to lower customers' total cost of ownership of the Microsoft® Windows platform. Customers will be able to continue building on Sysinternals' advanced utilities, technical information and source code for utilities related to Windows. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.Winternals was established in 1996 by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, who are recognized industry leaders in the areas of operating system design and architecture. Russinovich will join the Microsoft Platforms & Services Division as a technical fellow, working with numerous technology teams across Microsoft, and Cogswell will join the Windows Component Platform Team in the role of software architect.

Winternals Software - Products

Want to know Mark's perspective? Here's his blog entry on the subject:

On My Way to Microsoft!

I’m very pleased to announce that Microsoft has acquired Winternals Softwareand Sysinternals. Bryce Cogswell and I founded both Winternals andSysinternals (originally NTInternals) back in 1996 with the goal ofdeveloping advanced technologies for Windows. We’ve had anincredible amount of fun over the last ten years working on a widerange of diverse products such as Winternals Administrator’s Pak,Protection Manager, Defrag Manager, and Recovery Manager, and thedozens of Sysinternals tools, including Filemon, Regmon and ProcessExplorer, that millions of people use every day for systemstroubleshooting and management. There’s nothing more satisfyingfor me than to see our ideas and their implementation have a positiveimpact.

Mark's Sysinternals Blog: On My Way to Microsoft!

technorati tags:sysinternals, winternals, mark, russinovich, Microsoft