Ray Ozzie

Raymond "Ray" Ozzie (born November 20, 1955) is an American software industry entrepreneur who held the positions of Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft between 2005 and 2010. Before Microsoft, he was best known for his role in creating Lotus Notes.

He was then recruited by Sachs and Mitch Kapor to work for Lotus Development to develop what became Lotus Symphony. Ozzie left Lotus Development in 1984 and founded Iris Associates to create the product later sold by Lotus as Lotus Notes, based in part on his experiences using the PLATO Notes group messaging system. Iris Associates was acquired by Lotus in 1994, and Lotus itself was acquired by IBM in 1995.

Ozzie's early career and ideas about programming are described in the book Programmers at Work, a collection of interviews published by Microsoft Press.

Ozzie worked for Lotus and IBM for several years before leaving in 1997, to form Groove Networks. Groove was acquired by Microsoft in 2005, where Ozzie became one of three Chief Technical Officers.

On June 15, 2006, Ozzie took over the role of Chief Software Architect from Bill Gates. In October 2009, he also created FUSE Labs (Future Social Experiences) within this advanced development unit, focusing on innovation in social experiences for mobile and web.

On October 18, 2010, Ozzie officially announced his plans to step down from his role at Microsoft.

In 2011, he helped create the non-profit Safecast.

In January 2012, Ozzie started Talko Inc., a company that delivered mobile apps and services for business team communications primarily focused on those roles in which voice is essential. Talko was launched in September 2014. Ozzie has said that the name "Talko" was meant as an homage to Talkomatic, a popular group chat program he experienced while working on the PLATO System in the 1970s. Ray sold the company to Microsoft in December 2015, with the intent to bring Talko's novel voice and productivity features to Microsoft's Skype.

In 2013, Ozzie joined the board of directors at Hewlett-Packard, and continues to serve as a director of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He joined the board of Safecast in 2017.

In April 2020, Ray Ozzie raised $11 million for his new venture, Blues Wireless, an IoT company. By July 2021, Ozzie had raised $22 million from investors.

Awards and honors Ozzie was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004, for the conception and development of online collaboration products, including Lotus Notes.