The business community basically concluded that Mr. Gates would continue to influence events although not make day-to-day operational decisions.  This doesn’t bother most investors since Microsoft is better at making new knobs than it is at trying to explain to judges why Windows isn’t a monopoly.  Then Computer Associates President Sanjay Kumar got in more traditional trouble (faking out stockholders), and kicked himself upstairs and titled himself Chief Software Architect.  One more of these and we’ll have a trend.  So we’d better figure this out.

The initial impression one gets is that Chief Software Architect is the penalty box for software executives that are one step away from jail.  One ‘does time’ in this role until relevant controversies have settled down.  Often the court and regulatory rulings driving such management shuffles deal with business or accounting issues that have little or no precedent.  An inscrutable title goes with an inscrutable plaint.

Then there is the ‘Chinese Emperor’ theory or it’s modern equivalent, where the head of state is never presented to the rabble, and various mandarins take executive responsibility and the associated heat.  In China today we have the Premier (Head of State) Wen Jiabao, while the former President Jiang Zemin operates ‘behind the scenes’, in particular in control of the military.  Mr. Gates can avoid depositions and similar inconveniences if he is not ‘calling the shots’, while he putters around in the Microsoft Research laboratories thinking up the ‘next big thing’.  In short, a collective body of shareholders owns his quarter trillion dollar market cap playpen.

Mr. Bill has gotten into charity work, trying to cure disease in various parts of the third world.  As the largest percentage owner of the company, he could ‘retire’ and pursue personal interests, but it is unlikely that stockholders would be happy with this outcome.  If the average programmer is ‘owned’ by their support obligations, just imagine how this works for big kahunas.  A large number of people expect him to stick around... without antagonizing the Feds.  Therefore we have a role in which he is ‘working’ and ‘relevant’ but not playing hardball with Mr. Jobs, Mr. Ellison, several corps of lawyers, and Eurozombies.

 Having considered these possibilities, what’s left is the fact that there might actually be a Chief Software Architect.  And if there is a chief, then there has to be... Never mind that.  For someone to be a CSA, there have to be Software Architects.  Is there an ad for Software Architect in your local paper?  Maybe finding one is like getting to Hogwarts.

Bring up the word architect and plenty of people are thinking of the Parthenon, some cozy retreat in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, or various Italian Renaissance treasures.  Recent stories about Frank Lloyd Wright on PBS illustrate that such lives are often contorted and haphazard, not to mention controversial.  Among the characteristics of the kind that build buildings is that they are often hired to do projects they don’t have much interest in; that they get in fights with their clients over who pays for what, particularly when the architect makes a mistake; and buildings that look great often don’t ‘work’.  The aesthetics are great as long as the air is the right temperature and the roof isn’t leaking.

So perhaps we can excuse some of the bugs in our more commonly used products as ‘artistic license’ by someone who is ‘inspired’.  Of course, ‘architects’ didn’t design these programs.  They are components of an architectural system, which spans Microsoft, it’s partners, and it’s imitators.

Real buildings have foundations, superstructures, HVAC, lighting, and interior finish.  Corporate applications architecture starts with basics: clients, servers, database engines, networking infrastructure, and specialized hardware.  Sitting immediately on top of this are the back end databases, the ‘standard desktops’ (the way a user’s PC is configured), email and messaging, one or more security layers (and associated policies), and corporate standards for documentation and training.  On top of this are generic standards for presentation, say for the appearance of web pages, user forms, command buttons, menus, and printed reports.  On top of this are specific applications, such as Order Entry, Sales Analysis, or Production Scheduling.  Some of these applications exchange data with each other, which is defined by the way databases are replicated between departments and the way associated rights are assigned to users.  Users working for large employers might notice such resources are often haphazardly organized, designed, and administered.  This has the architectural flavor of Bandera Road as opposed to, say, the River Walk.

So a software architect would come in and give this mess a unified, aesthetic, and consistent user experience, whether it is the interface, user account management, or report presentation.  People that moved from Accounts Receivable to Production Control wouldn’t find the new application ‘surprising’.  Someone converting the dBase application to GUI would know what menu items to define, where to put the Exit button, and how the corporate logo appears on reports.

A company with an IT department based in one city might have a Software Architect to ride herd on the developers.  This is different from the CIO (Chief Information Officer), who is interested in the strategic and tactical value of corporate data.  If there is more than one IT group, then the Chief Architect resolves issues that develop between the architects of the various groups.

One suspects that Mr. Gates isn’t doing this within the innards of Microsoft.  The ‘architecture’ envisioned is global, and Microsoft is going to set the standards.  Have we been here before?