Originator of Excel, Word leaves MS for startup
"Charles Simonyi, the man who laid the cornerstones of Microsoft's applications software empire, is leaving the company to do his own thing, a software startup. Simonyi was one of Microsoft's longest-serving employees, joining in 1981 from Xerox PARC, and has in his list of credits Multiplan, Word and Excel."
I think this can be taken two way's from Microsofts point of view. The first of course is looking at the loss, an employee with 20 years in the company is leaving. But the second and more importantly is that this leaves an opening for some one new and possibly new innovation.
See the full article from The Register