Jon DeVaan

Jon DeVaan (born c. 1960 in Minnesota) is a former senior vice president for Windows Development at Microsoft.
DeVaan graduated from Oregon State University (OSU) in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics. He also serves as a trustee of the OSU Foundation.
He started at Microsoft in 1984 working on application programs for the Macintosh and was a programmer on Excel 1.0. DeVaan helped define engineering practices of Microsoft in the early days of writing GUI software. DeVaan shipped Excel 1.0 through Excel '95 on Macintosh, OS/2 and Windows platforms. DeVaan helped evolve the Microsoft applications division from fiercely independent standalone teams to an integrated team creating Microsoft Office 1.0 through the delivery of and the design of Office 2000.
In 1999 he left the Office group to work on the online and TV areas of Microsoft participating in the development and launch of UltimateTV and the Microsoft TV platform. In 2002, working for Bill Gates, DeVaan led a company-wide effort to revitalize the engineering practices of Microsoft. In 2006, he assumed leadership of the Windows Core Operating System Division (COSD), responsible for the teams that create the core components and architecture of Microsoft Windows.
DeVaan led COSD to create Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 7 and in 2009 became the leader of the development team delivering Windows 8 and 8.1. He left Microsoft at the beginning of 2014.

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