A dozen years ago, Jeffrey S. Raikes struck digital gold. He fused together Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) word-processing and spreadsheet programs to create Office, a software phenomenon that has racked up more than $60 billion in sales. In the 1990s, Office became Microsoft's other, quieter monopoly, joining the Windows operating system. Following that success, Raikes went on to oversee the company's vast sales operation. Ultimately, he emerged as one of the top executives atMicrosoft, sitting just a notch below Chairman William H. Gates III and CEO Steven A. Ballmer.

But he's not sitting still. These days Raikes is tackling a crucial assignment, one that's key to growth at Microsoft: He is back at Office, remaking his own creation. The goal is to light a fire under Office, whose growth had slowed to an anemic 1% in the year ended June 30. Raikes intends to increase that growth by a factor of nine, doubling the size of Office to $20 billion in annual sales by 2010. In coming months, Raikes and his team will be launching a host of products, from software for a new tablet computer to programs that help workers quickly analyze oceans of data. The key question now, for Microsoft as well as for the rest of the industry, is whether Raikes can hit the jackpot a second time with the same ticket.