James Edward Allchin (born 1951, Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States) is an American computer scientist, philanthropist and guitarist. He is a former Microsoft executive. He assisted Microsoft in creating many of the system platform components including Microsoft Windows, Windows Server, server products such as SQL Server, and developer technologies. He is best known for building Microsoft's server business and for leading foundational releases of Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. He is also known for his leading role in the architecture and development of the directory services technology Banyan VINES. He has won numerous awards in his career such as the Technical Excellence Person of the Year in 2001. Jim Allchin led the Platforms division at Microsoft, overseeing the development of Windows client from Windows 98 to Windows Vista, Windows Server from NT Server 4.0 to Windows Server 2008, as well as several releases of Microsoft server products as well as Windows CE and Windows Embedded line of products. After serving sixteen years at Microsoft, Allchin retired in early 2007 when Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers. He is now a professional musician. Biography Early years Allchin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1951. While he was still an infant, the Allchin family moved to Keysville, Florida, where his parents worked on a farm. Allchin grew up in a tin-roof house built by his father. Later, Allchin and his older brother Keith also worked on the farm to support the family financially. While fixing equipment on the farm, Allchin developed an interest in engineering. He studied Electrical engineering at the University of Florida, but dropped out to play in a number of bands. He later returned to the university and graduated with BS in Computer Science in 1973. After receiving his degree, Allchin joined Texas Instruments, where he helped build a new operating system. Afterwards, he followed a former lecturer, Dick Kiger, to Wyoming, where he helped him to start a new company offering computer services nationwide, before moving on to another company in Dallas, Texas. Allchin returned to his studies, earning the degree of MS in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1980. Allchin wrote a language-independent, portable file system while at Stanford. While pursuing his PhD in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology in the early eighties, he was the primary architect of the Clouds distributed object-oriented operating system; his PhD