Silicon Valley writers may think they know it all, but this insider from Seattle has the real story on why Microsoft's Windows Vista chief just left early for Amazon.

I think this is literally yesterday's news, but since Mary Jo Foley and others seem to have it wrong here is the scoop:

Valentine basically just went through deja vu. Back in 1999, when Windows 5.0 (what would become Windows 2000) was 2 years late and had no end in sight the then head of Windows was replaced by Valentine to "get it done". Since Windows 6.0 (aka Vista aka Longhorn) was in the same boat, Valentine was "Microsoft fired" a few months ago when they said "he'll be taking on a new and exciting role after Vista is done" which translated was "we can't ship if we fire him now so let him stick around and see if anyone would dare hire him after this debacle".

Well, apparently Amazon must have given him a pretty sweet deal to leave now before shipping Vista. But since a huge amount of options & stock awards vested on 8/31, why not jump ship?

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