Jon DeVaan

Who is Jon DeVaan?

Jon DeVaan was a senior vice president for Windows Development at Microsoft.

DeVaan graduated from Oregon State University 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 played an important role in defining the engineering practices of Microsoft in the early days of writing GUI software. In this time line DeVaan shipped Excel 1.0 through Excel '95 on Macintosh, OS/2 and Windows platforms. DeVaan was one of the leaders who drove the evolution of the Microsoft applications division from fiercely independent standalone teams to an integrated team creating Microsoft Office 1.0 through the delivery of Office '97 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 known as Engineering Excellence to revitalize the engineering practices of Microsoft.