Charles Simonyi

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Charles Simonyi (Hungarian: Simonyi Károly) is a computer software developer, who, as head of Microsoft's application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsoft's flagship applications.

Biography

Simonyi was born in Budapest, Hungary on September 10, 1948. While in high school he worked part-time as a night watchman at a computer laboratory. He took an interest in computing and learned to program from one of the laboratory's engineers. By the time he graduated high school he had learned to develop compilers and sold one of these to a government department. He was hired by Denmark's A/S Regnecentralen in 1966 and moved to the United States in 1968 to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his BS in Engineering Mathematics, specializing in Mathematics and Statistics, in 1972.

Simonyi continued to Stanford University for graduate studies and was hired by Xerox PARC during its most productive period, working alongside luminaries Alan Kay, Butler Lampson and Robert Metcalfe. He and Lampson developed Bravo, the first WYSIWYG document preparation program.

In 1981, at Metcalfe's suggestion, he applied directly to Bill Gates for a job at Microsoft. At Microsoft Simonyi oversaw the development of what became its most profitable products, Word and Excel, as well as Excel's predecessor Multiplan. With Multiplan, Simonyi pursued a strategy called the "revenue bomb," whereby the product ran on a virtual machine that was ported to each platform. The resulting application was highly portable, although Simyoni did not foresee the rapid adoption of MS-DOS that made such efforts less important.Mitchell, Robert. "[Microsoft Days: Transforming the Desktop]." Computerworld. 9 December 2002.Brodie, Richard. [Microsoft: The Early Days] (personal web page)

Simonyi introduced the techniques of object-oriented programming that he had learned at Xerox and developed the Hungarian notation for naming variables. He also tested a software management method that had been the subject of his dissertation, called metaprogramming. Metaprogramming placed all design decisions in a single "metaprogrammer," with other programmers focusing strictly on implementing the metaprogrammer's design. Problems with this technique led to Microsoft adopting a different approach, now known as software program management.

Simonyi remained at Microsoft during its meteoric rise in the software industry, becoming one of its highest-ranking developers. He left abruptly in 2002 to co-found, with business partner Gregor Kiczales, a company called [Intentional Software]. This company markets the intentional programming concepts Simonyi developed at Microsoft Research.

Simonyi has been an active philanthropist, establishing the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, the first occupant of which is Richard Dawkins. In January 2004, Simonyi created the $50 million Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, through which Simonyi plans to support Seattle area arts, science, and educational programs. Initial grant recipients include the Seattle Symphony ($10 million), and the Seattle Public Library ($3 million). In 2005, the Fund donated $25 million to the Institute for Advanced Study.

According to the 2005 Forbes 400 issue, Charles Simonyi is currently dating home-making personality Martha Stewart.

In April 2006 Simonyi expressed interest in becoming the fifth space tourist and signed agreements with the Russian Space Agency for a flight to the International Space Station on Soyuz TMA-10 in March 2007. In May 2006, it was reported that he was one of the two possible choices, with Anousheh Ansari, for the third seat on Soyuz TMA-10.[Kommersant Web site]

References

External links

[Charles Simonyi, the benefactor of the Simonyi Professorship at the University of Oxford]
[Charles Simonyi] from [Edge Foundation]; see Edge Foundation
[Spacefacts biography of Charles Simonyi]
[The Rosetta code: archaeology of the Gier-Algol compiler program] (an [Intentional Software] presentation by Simonyi)
[The Biggest Damn Opportunity] (Forbes interview)

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