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<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image">Screenshot Of Microsoft's Surface Launch Video</div></div>Ousted Windows leader Steven Sinofsky is join venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20130822/former-windows-head-sinofsky-joins-andreessen-horowitz-as-board-partner/?mod=tweet">Kara Swisher at All Things D reports</a>. 
Sinofsky has been advising Andreessen Horowitz all year long says Swisher. This just makes the relationship more formal.
Sinofsky was a long-time Microsoft exec. He gets the bulk of the credit for building Windows 7, which was crucial for Microsoft. The previous version of Windows, Vista, was a total flop. He came in and fixed the problems with Vista and shipped Windows 7 on time. 
Most recently, he led the development of Windows 8, which has not gone so well. The operating system is a radical change and consumers are not exactly flocking to it. 
The reasons for Sinofsky's departure from Microsoft remain murky. There are reports that CEO Steve Ballmer wanted to remove Sinofsky because he thought Sinofsky was not a team player.

Former Windows Boss Steven Sinofsky Becomes A VC For Andreessen Horowitz

<div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image"><keyword id="1842227" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Local-Motion">Local Motion</keyword></div></div>Steven Sinofsky is joining the board of car sharing technology startup Local Motion. 
Venture capital firm <keyword id="508487" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Andreessen-Horowitz">Andreessen Horowitz</keyword> (AH) is investing $6 million in Local Motion. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/former-windows-boss-steven-sinfosky-becomes-a-vc-for-andreessen-horowitz-2013-8">Sinofsky recently joined Andreessen Horowitz</a>. 
We spoke with Local Motion co-founder Clement Gires about his company, and Sinofsky. 
Gires and his co-founder John Stanfield were building their own electric car at Stanford. During the process, they realized they would be better off with the software they built to power the car. 
They created a small box that goes inside fleets of cars. The box then tracks the car and allows it to be unlocked by multiple users. This way, cars are used more efficiently. 
Gires explained it over the phone by saying a city might have 3,000 cars for various departments. Today, that means 3,000 keys for 3,000 people. But, those cars aren't always being used simultaneously. His vision is that anyone of the 3,000 people can use anyone of the 3,000 cars.
 In this way, the municipality will eventually be able to buy few cars since people will be able to share the cars. When someone unlocks the car, either through Bluetooth or swipe card, their actions/mileage in the car is tracked, so if they wreck it, the city knows who did it. 
This technology could be used for rental car companies, corporations, or even homes that have multiple drivers. 
"Our speciality is car sharing technology," says Gires. His vision is that "in future people will not buy cars, they will buy mobility." In other words, you could do a bike-share like program for people in dense urban areas. 
<div class="image-container float_right"><div class="image">Local Motion</div></div>Sinfosky raved about their software over the phone. "It's like using consumer software, and yet it's aimed for businesses." 
This is Sinfosky's first big deal for Andreessen Horowitz. He said it lines up with things he's interested in, and things he's seen living in urban areas. When the firm was trying to figure out who would be on Local Motion's board, Sinofsky says he basically said, "Ooh! Me! Me! Me!" 
Previously, Sinofsky was at Microsoft. He led the development of Windows, and was seen as the CEO-in-waiting until he was forced out of the company last fall. 
Amusingly, Gires says he hasn't used Windows 8, Sinfosky's last major project for Microsoft. And he also says he doesn't use Windows-based computers. 
Still, he's thrilled to have Sinofsky on the board because, "He helped build one the largest software companies in the world," and now he's "working on the sharing economy."
Software is key for Local Motion. While the rental/fleet market might not be the typical gigantic market a VC firm attacks, Sinofsky points out that the software can (and likely will) evolve to be in all cars, which is a huge, untapped market for technology companies.

Former Microsoft Executive Steven Sinofsky Makes His First Big Investment As A Venture Capitalist For Andreessen Horowitz

<table class="image-container float_right" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div>MicrosoftSteven Sinofsky</td></tr></table>At any company, there are going to be internal skirmishes about products and managerial decisions.
How you as an employee, or manager, deal with those skirmishes can determine the future of your career and the success of your company.
Steven Sinofsky, the former leader of Microsoft's Windows division has <a href="http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/01/21/managing-through-disagreement/">a long blog post exploring how to deal with disagreement</a> within your company.
He's an interesting person to write about the topic. When he left Microsoft, the spin from Redmond seemed to be that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-microsoftie-on-sinofsky-2012-11">he was a political in-fighter who didn't play nice with other division leaders</a>. His inability to work with others was a problem, and so he had to go.
We <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sinofsky-fires-back-i-wasnt-a-power-grabbing-jerk-2012-11">don't know if that's accurate or not</a>, but reading his post on organizational disagreement makes it clear that he spent quite a bit of time thinking about and dealing with conflict.
Here are his tips for dealing with fights at work:
<ul>
<li>Consult with an expert. Whenever there is a disagreement make sure the person who is an expert on the topic is consulted. Too often there are disagreements within a group and those disagreements are held back from the expert because he/she is not in the group. Always consult the expert, and if possible figure why s/he was not in on the decision making from the start.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Stick to your original plan. When you start on a project, get everyone in the team to agree on a broad plan. Then, as you work on the project, stick with the plan. Breakdowns occur when people veer from the plan. If they agreed early on to a framework, then it's easier to proceed on a smooth path.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Build a culture of respect. This relates to the notion of experts. You might be a developer who doesn't believe in the ad department. But the marketing people know what they're doing. And you might be a marketer who hates legal restrictions, but the legal department knows what it's doing. Rather than fight with other groups respect them and their choices.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Make everyone on a team accountable. Sinofsky says this is related to culture. Everyone needs to be working together and feeling equally accountable for the outcome of a project.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Choose your battles. Work is long and hard at times. Don't make it longer and harder by fighting to the death over every small thing that pops up. (Also, this way when you do choose your fight it has more impact.)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Finally, when you end an argument, end an argument. Too many times people agree to disagree, but they let the disagreement fester. They bring it up any chance they can. That's not productive.</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/01/21/managing-through-disagreement/">Read his full post here →</a>

Microsoft's Former Windows Leader Steven Sinofsky Explains How To Win Fights At Work

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:350px"><div class="image"></div><keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword></div>A couple days ago, <a href="http://9to5mac.com/">bloggers began to notice</a> that ex-Windows boss Steven Sinofsky has been tweeting from an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone">iPhone</a>.
After explaining himself in the comments section of one of these blogs, <a href="http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/01/14/learning-from-competition/">Sinofsky has now written a full post about why he uses an iPhone.</a>
He says the goal is to scope out "the competition."
He writes:
"Obviously you should use a competitive product. You should know what you’re up against when a consumer (or business) ultimately faces a buying decision. They will weigh a wide array of factors and you should be aware of those not only for the purposes of sales and marketing but when you are designing your products." 
That's a fine explanation, except for one thing.
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/apple">Apple</a> isn't Sinofsky's competition anymore. Sinofsky left <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft">Microsoft</a> late last year. He's now teaching a class at Harvard, so his current competition is…<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yale-1">Yale</a>?
Sinofsky goes on to offer some tips for other executives looking to effectively check out products from their competition.
In his words, he says these are common mistakes to avoid:
<ul>
<li>Using the product in a lightweight manner. All too often analyzing the competition itself becomes a checklist work item. Go to the store and play with it for a few minutes. Maybe ask a friend or neighbor what they think. The usage of a competitive product needs to be in depth and over time. You need to use the product like it is your primary product and not switch or fall back to your old way of working. Often this is weeks or more of usage. Even as a reviewer this applies. Walt Mossberg famously took an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ipad">iPad</a> on a <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20100922/an-american-in-paris-says-au-revoir-to-his-laptop/">10 day trip to France</a>—no laptop at all. That’s how to use a product.</li>
<li>Thinking like yourself, not the competition. When using a competitive product you need to use it like it was intended to be used by the designers. Don’t get the product and use the customization tools to morph it into the familiar. Even if a product has a mode to make it work like the familiar (as a competitive bridge they offer) don’t use it. Use native file formats. Use defaults in the UI and functionality. Follow the designed workflow. They key is to let loose of your muscle memory and develop new memory.</li>
<li>Betting competitors act similarly (or even rationally). If you think like a competitor you have to make future decisions like they might. Of course you can’t really do that or really know and this is where product intuition comes to mind (and also why blogs predicting product directions are often off the mark). You have to really wrap yourself around the culture, constraints, resources, and more of a competitor. The reality is that your competitor is not going “fix” their product to turn it into your product. So then the question is what would a competitors do in their context, not what would you do if you were designing the follow-on product in your context. This might actually feel irrational to you. One of the most classic examples of this is whether or not the Mac OS should have been licensed to other PC makers or not. Arguments could be made either way, both then and now. But what is right or assumed in one context simply doesn’t make sense in another. That context can also include a time dimension where the answer actually changes.</li>
<li>Assume the world is static. Even after you’ve reviewed a competitor through usage you might feel confident because they are missing some features or might have done some things poorly. That’s a static view of the world. Keep in mind analyzing the competition is a two-way street. If you noticed a weakness there’s a really good chance the competitor knew about it. When everyone pointed out that a phone was missing copy/paste, don’t make a mistake thinking that was news to the development team and would remain a competitive advantage.</li>
</ul>

Ex-Windows Boss Steve Sinofsky: Here's Why I Use An iPhone

<table class="image-container float_right" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"></div>Microsoft</td></tr></table>Two of the most successful consumer technology <keyword id="19705" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Products">products</keyword> of all time are <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> Office and Microsoft Windows.
So, when the former head of both divisions, Steven Sinofsky, has something to say about consumer tech, it's worth listening.
Lucky for us, Sinofsky went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year and decided to write a very long blog post about it.
It's called <a href="http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/01/13/learning-by-sharing-snark-free-ces-observations/">"</a><a href="http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/01/13/learning-by-sharing-snark-free-ces-observations/">Learning by Sharing: Snark-free CES observations."</a>
The best part is where Sinofsky talks about trends on the rise. It gives you a sense of what the world is going to look like in the medium term.
He says these trends were "refined" for 2013's show:
<ul>
<li>Mobile is now the main event. "Where CES used to think mobile was in the North Hall’s Auto section, now everything is mobile."</li>
<li>Design is trending toward minimalism and clarity. "There’s a lot less glowing and translucency. Navigation is clearer. Touch gestures are assumed on any device and often are not readily apparent (that is designers are assuming you will figure out how to touch and tap to make stuff happen). And the use of the full screen for the task at hand is clearly dominant. Rather than gain “speed” or “power” via multitasking by arranging, widgets, picture in picture, and so on, the focus is on moving quickly between task-oriented screens."</li>
<li>Build quality is getting better. "That’s not to say there’s a fair share of low-end and low-quality stuff, particularly tablets, one can see in the South Hall as usual. There is, however, a rising tide of quality. This is a sign of further upstream integration of components as well as maturing manufacturing and assembly. </li>
<li>Products update themselves now. "While we might curse updates or think it encourages poor engineering, the reality is that the quality of what we experience is better than ever because of these updates."</li>
<li>Many products integrate with social networks. "You can hop on a scale and share the weight right away. You can share movies you have watched easily. You can even share how happy a meal made you."</li>
<li>Other technologies are accelerating as fast as processing power. "We’re now seeing this increase in bandwidth usage (UHD Netflix streaming, for example) and in the silicon based nature of visuals (screens and camera sensors, for example). Even wireless networking is seeing a significant uptick in speed."</li>
<li>Offline tools are coming online. "For sure, the connection of our lives to the internet continues as a trend. It is really amazing how many analog things are being digitized—door locks, luggage tags, mouth guards, and more."</li>
</ul>
Sinofsky says that these were the cutting edge technologies on display in 2013:
<ul>
<li>Super high definition televisions. "Seeing the 100” and greater 4K screens is breathtaking. It is incredible to think that it was just two years ago we were ogling at a 60” LED 1080P screens. Moore’s law applies to screens. Every major TV/screen company was showing 4K screens and these will be products soon enough for sure, and then the prices will come down."</li>
<li>Computer (and tablet and smartphone) displays are getting much better. "This year saw a significant amount of credible innovation in the area of screen technology. Flexible displays seem more realistic than past years because they were in more than one booth. OLED made a strong reappearance with an amazing 4K OLED screen. Curved screens that match what we see in movie theaters showed up. I loved the wide aspect ratio screen from LG. Touch is being integrated into large panels for use for broadcast, meeting rooms and signage. Even the distribution of HDMI signals for digital signage saw innovation with single CAT5 systems at commodity prices. Samsung had a very cool transparent display that allows a physical product to be “enclosed” in the screen."</li>
<li>Content is moving from device to device and from screen to screen. "There’s an incredible desire for the ability to get what I am seeing on a phone or tablet on to a bigger screen (the flipside of getting what streams over cable/sat onto my phone/tablet is a different problem). This seems to be struggling with scenarios and responsiveness right now but seems like it will be figured out—after all, how many of us watch a movie and look things up on IMDB on our phones or watch sports tracking another game or stats on our tablet? The scenarios last year were focused on Facebook/twitter on your TV or news/weather while you watch and that is what seems to have been reduced in excitement (those always seemed a bit awkward to me for a family room)."</li>
<li>High end digital cameras are coming back. "Digital SLRs are seeing a rebirth at a level of flexibility and sophistication that is mind blowing. The role of DSLR for video has spawned a whole industry of accessories to morph a still camera into a motion camera in terms of form factor (the sensor and lens are the real value). Image stabilization, critically important on tiny form factors, is becoming incredibly good."</li>
<li>The "Phablet" is a sign that consumer will have wide choices for phone sizes. "The made up word that was used more than it seems like it should was Phablet—a device that is bigger than a phone and smaller than a tablet. Given the size of phones this might mean 5-6.9” or so. It seems that there are two views. There’s the view that a phone is a phone and should be “less than” some size, and a tablet is a tablet which is 7-8” unless it is a big tablet (9.7”) or a PC/tablet. The other view is that consumers will be selecting from a wide variety of sizes and the industry will meet many needs. I like this second view."</li>
<li>Cable companies and satellite TV companies are getting better at organizing "real TV." The companies that distribute “real TV” to consumers (especially live events and original programming) seemed especially innovative this year. DISH is particularly innovative in bringing together a very nice and high quality multi-room and multi-device scenario. One thing that really struck me was the new ability to flag a program for transcoding to your mobile device and easily download it. To date this has been mostly impossible to do. Unless you want to wait for DVD or streaming this is the only way to time and location shift first-run programming. Programming guides are getting much better and faster to interact with and the integration of fun data (related programs, background info) is great to see. Getting to place where you have one tuner box and then much smaller, fanless, storageless, settop boxes in other rooms is really close."</li>
<li>Gadgets that work as sensors on humans are becoming ubiquitous. "These products are truly modern products—empowering consumers with technology to literally improve their lives, and connect them to the internet and other resources. There are all sorts of sensors for well-known human telemetry: weight, blood pressure, pulse oximetry, glucose level, air quality, distance traveled, and more. There are also sensors for fuzzier (computed not measured) areas such as concentration, sleep quality, mood, and so on. The common element for all of these is measurement with a device that connects to the internet (or directly your mobile device via bluetooth) and then on your device you can view trends, track, and analyze the data. For many people this is literally life and death (tracking bp, glucose). For many it is a way to maintain fitness levels or achieve a better level of fitness. Two things really struck me. First, there is a real responsibility these companies will need to shoulder to separate medically actionable data from telemetry that will simply drive you crazy and drive up medical costs for society (tracking pulseox for a normal healthy person is dubious). Second, these are really a unique set of products/services/businesses that are essentially mobile-only, profiting by either the device sale or a device + service subscription. Some are not even bothering with web-browser based viewing."</li>
<li>New PCs are going to come in all shapes and sizes. "There were a number of hybrid PCs (tablet with removeable/hideable/flippable keyboards) that are becoming clearer and more refined—I especially liked the Samsung and Lenovo entries. These PCs are really great for developers and designers—they let you work directly with the code and a client/designer at the same time in both coding and tablet usage styles. As with “phablet”, it seems that the variety of tablets enabled by Windows will be something that continues to bring innovative ideas to consumers."</li>
<li>Technology will keep trying to be green. "The most interesting challenge is that to really reduce power consumption (and extend battery life) requires hardware and software working together. Hardware companies announce the power draw of the hardware independent of the software platform; devices advertise battery life independent of radio signal strength or app load; manufacturers can create a software profile (drivers and more) that is not optimal for the advertised hardware number. There’s a lot to get this right."</li>
<li>"Help I've fallen and I can't get up" gadgets are getting updated. "There were related products for pets and luggage as well, but the one for humans seems to be particularly valuable."</li>
</ul>
Equally as fascinating is Sinofsky look at which consumer tech trends are losing traction. He writes:
<ul>
<li>
3D. "3D was really big last year and you really had to work hard to even find a booth with glasses at all. I can’t recall something that had so many real products you could buy (and could buy that previous holiday) and in one year essentially vanished. I’m still surprised by this a bit because the world is 3D—it seems that the technology approach wasn’t working so I would not write off the concept just yet."
</li>
<li>
Storage. "There was a lot less in the way of storage technologies—hard drive cages, USB drives and sticks, media storage cabinets even. The cloud world we live in along with seemingly unlimited storage in the devices we use indicate this trend will continue."
</li>
<li>
Waterproof. "Last year it seemed like every booth had a fish tank holding a phone or tablet."
</li>
<li>
Media boxes. "There used to be a seemingly endless array of boxes that distribute photos, videos, and music around a home network. With Pandora/Netflix/etc. built into every TV and DVD player (and apps on every device), this type of device has probably been integrated."
</li>
<li>
Gesture based TV. "The excitement of gesture based control of TV was all but gone."
</li>
</ul>

Ex-Windows Boss Sinofsky: These Are The Technologies You'll Be Using Next

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><a href="http://live.wsj.com/public/page/embed-6B04DFD8_FFBB_4995_AF21_B211BC285541.html">AllThingsD Video</a>Steven Sinofsky</div></div><keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword> has agreed to cash out 418,361 shares of unvested stock awarded to ex-Windows boss Steven Sinofsky before he left the company on November 12, 2012.
If all of them were paid out today, with the stock trading at ~$34, Sinofsky would be getting $14.2 million.
Those were part of the terms of Sinofsky's retirement revealed in <a href="https://investor.shareholder.com/msft/alerts/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1193125-13-282853">a form filed to the SEC</a> and spotted Wednesday by <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-and-former-windows-chief-sinofsky-agree-on-retirement-terms-7000017663/">ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley</a>.
Specifically, Microsoft will pay Sinofsky for all of his outstanding unvested stock granted prior to its fiscal year 2013, which just ended in June. He'll also get half of the stock awarded for his performance during fiscal year 2013, it said.
Microsoft will pay Sinofsky over time, through August 2016. He'll get the market price on the day the stock is payable so if the stock falls, it will be less than $14 million and if rises, he'll get more.
The SEC agreement also revealed other terms of Sinofsky's retirement. He can't take a job with one of Microsoft's competitors before Dec. 31, 2013. He was forbidden from poaching Microsoft employees or customers, from bashing Microsoft and from revealing Microsoft's intellectual property secrets. They both agreed not to sue each other, too.
Vesting is typically used to ensure that an employee will stick around. In this case, Microsoft PR told Foley that given Sinofsky's 23 years at the company, Microsoft offered him "the economic value of the stock awards he earned during his employment, similar to the retirement benefits we provide employees who work at least 15 years and retire at 55 or older." 
With this agreement, Sinofsky is also obligated to help Microsoft "with intellectual property litigation until January 1, 2017," Microsoft PR pointed out. Sinofsky has been involved with at least two such lawsuits in the past few years, Foley reports.

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