User:Sammytown
Jeff Raikes[edit]
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Jeff Raikes at a Microsoft launch event, 2006
Jeff Raikes (born May 29, 1958) is a company President at Microsoft. Until early 2008, Raikes was the President of the Microsoft Business Division and oversaw the Information Worker, Server & Tools Business and Microsoft Business Solutions Groups. In January 2008, he announced his plans to retire from Microsoft in September, 2008.
Raikes is best known as the godfather of Microsoft Office. He is credited with leading much of Microsoft’s early work in business applications. He also held roles managing the company’s sales force and services groups. He joined Microsoft in 1981 as a product manager.
He grew up in Ashland, Nebraska graduating from Ashland-Greenwood High School in 1976. He received his bachelor's degree in Engineering-Economics Systems in 1980 from Stanford University. While at Stanford, Raikes had his first exposure to computing learning Pascal on a DEC System 20. His first PC purchase was an Apple II, which he used to help his brother, Ron Raikes, manage the family farm.
After graduating from Stanford, he joined Apple Computer as the VisiCalc Engineering Manager in 1980. He worked at Apple for 15 months and was recruited to Microsoft by Steve Ballmer in 1981 where he joined as a product manager. He was promoted to director of Applications Marketing in 1984, and was the chief strategist behind Microsoft's investments graphical applications for the Apple Macintosh and the Microsoft Windows operating system. In this role, he drove the product strategy and design of Microsoft Office. Raikes was promoted to vice president of Office Systems, where he was responsible for development and marketing of word processing, workgroup applications and pen computing.
He subsequently held roles managing North American sales and services. In 2001, he returned to lead the Information Worker business at Microsoft. He was named a company president in 2005.
Raikes and his wife, Tricia Raikes (McGinnis) have three children.
In 1992, Raikes became a part owner of the Seattle Mariners