Cortana's new champion gives up, leaves Microsoft

In February Microsoft appointed 43-year-old Javier Soltero, previously Co-founder and CEO of Accompli before Microsoft purchased it and turned it into Outlook for Android and iOS, and who rose to the top of the Office team as Corporate VP of the Office Group, as corporate VP overseeing Cortana.

He saw turning Microsoft’s rapidly fading personal digital assistant around as a challenge, saying: “It’s exciting. It’s challenging.”

It seems, in the end, it was a challenge that Soltera could not defeat, as the VP is leaving Microsoft at the end of the year, according to ZDNet.

The move was in the offing ever since we heard that Cortana will no longer be under Harry Shum’s AI and Research organization, but would instead move under the office division, becoming the next generation of Clippy.

Microsoft has instead welcomed Alexa onto their platform, allowing Windows 10 users to use Cortana to summon a more useful digital assistant, much like how web users use Edge to download Chrome.

Soltero is said to be heading to less challenging work, such as being an entrepreneur, with Cortana moving under the care of Perry Clarke, who is only the GM of Exchange Server, demonstrating the diminishing status of Microsoft’s voice assistant.

Do our readers think Microsoft might as well put Cortana out of her misery? Let us know below.

Via WBI