Sinofsky manages the design and development of the Office suite and its applications, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, the Outlook^® messaging and collaboration client, Microsoft Access, and the PowerPoint^® presentation graphics program. Sinofsky reports to Jon DeVaan, vice president of desktop applications.

Valentine manages the design and development of the Windows 2000 operating system and associated infrastructure products such as Proxy Server and Systems Management Server. Valentine reports to Jim Allchin, senior vice president of the personal and business systems group.

"We are delighted to recognize the tremendous contributions that Steven Sinofsky and Brian Valentine have made to Microsoft," said Bill Gates, chairman and CEO of Microsoft. "Steven has been a leader of the Office effort for nearly three product generations. His impact on the business results, innovative product design and strong team performance are pacesetters in the company. Brian has done an incredible job in shipping complex enterprise-level products and building successful software engineering organizations from the ground up. He has managed the design and development of Microsoft Exchange from its inception and has built its reputation as one of the leading messaging products in the world."

Sinofsky has been an insightful leader in the Office group since joining the Office team in 1994, increasing his responsibilities with each subsequent release of the desktop suite. The customer excitement over Office 2000, which is now available in prerelease versions prior to final product shipment in the second quarter of 1999, is in large part because of his skill and passionate dedication to Microsoft customers. Prior to joining the desktop applications group, Sinofsky assisted Bill Gates in coordinating technical strategy across the entire Microsoft product line. He was also a founding member of the Microsoft C++ Application Framework effort known as Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), used by independent software vendors (ISVs) worldwide. Sinofsky, who has a master's degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, earned his bachelor's degree at Cornell University.

Before managing the Windows group, Valentine managed the server applications division and has also been responsible for the Exchange product unit, which developed and marketed Microsoft Mail 3.0, Exchange 4.0, Exchange 5.0 and Exchange 5.5. As leader of the Exchange product unit for seven years, he has brought the messaging server to enterprise-class status, built a successful development organization and product line from scratch, and surpassed an entrenched competitor in new seats for the first time in 1998. In his 11 years with Microsoft, Valentine has distinguished himself with his skill, market understanding and outstanding drive and dedication. Before joining Microsoft, Valentine was a project leader at Intel Corp. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Eastern Washington University.