Ray Ozzie’s Next Big Thing: Cocomo

Since when is naming your startup and posting a job ad news? When your name is Ray Ozzie, that’s when.

The former Microsoft chief software architect and Lotus veteran has surfaced after a year of working behind the scenes. Ozzie reached out to the Boston Globe‘s Scott Kirsner with a teaser about his new project: a startup called Cocomo that he has co-founded in Boston and Seattle. The company is developing communications software and tools for social interaction, and it is recruiting engineers—in particular, a lead user interface/experience designer with mobile chops. That’s about it for specifics so far, though Kirsner reports that the company doesn’t yet have office space, and that ex-Microsofties Matt Pope and Ransom Richardson are part of the team.

Ozzie left Microsoft at the end of 2010 after four years on the job (a move that I foreshadowed a year earlier). He had joined Microsoft with its acquisition of his collaboration software firm Groove Networks. Ozzie was Bill Gates’s handpicked successor as software architect, and he led Windows Azure among other projects, but ultimately Microsoft wasn’t a great fit for his talents. We’ll be watching closely to see what he builds at Cocomo.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.