'''Ray Ozzie''' (born November 20, 1955) is [[Chief Software Architect]] at [[Microsoft]]. He was formerly best known for his role in creating [[Lotus Notes]]. 

He grew up in [[Chicago, Illinois]], later moving to [[Park Ridge, Illinois]] and graduating from [[Maine South High School]] in 1973 where he learned to program on a [[GE-400]] mainframe and did technical work on school theater productions.

He received his [[bachelor's degree]] in [[computer science]] in [[1979]] from the [[University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]], where he worked on the [[PLATO system]], and began his working career at [[Data General| Data General Corporation]] where he worked for [[Jonathan Sachs]].  After leaving Data General, Ozzie worked at [[Software Arts]] for [[Dan Bricklin]] and [[Bob Frankston]], the creators of [[VisiCalc]], on that product and [[TK Solver]].  Shortly thereafter, he was recruited by Sachs and [[Mitch Kapor]] to work for Lotus Development to develop what became [[Lotus Symphony for DOS|Lotus Symphony]].  Ozzie left [[Lotus Development]] in 1984 and founded [[Iris Associates]] to create the product later sold by Lotus as [[Lotus Notes]].  [[Iris Associates]] was acquired by Lotus in 1994, and Lotus itself was acquired by [[IBM]] in 1995.  Ozzie worked there for several years before leaving to form [[Microsoft Groove|Groove Networks]]. Groove was acquired by [[Microsoft]] in 2005, where Ozzie became one of three [[Chief Technical Officer]]s.  

Ozzie and his wife, Dawna Bousquet, have two children, Neil Ozzie and Jill Ozzie.

On June 15, 2006, Ozzie took over the role of [[Chief Software Architect]] from [[Bill Gates]].

In Oct 2009 he founded "[[FUSE Labs]]" (Future Social Experiences) within Microsoft to focus on innovation around future social web experience.

==See also==
*[[Windows Pioneers]]

==External links==
{{No footnotes|date=February 2010}}
*[http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/10/24/ozzie_interview.html Interview] about Groove.
*[http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/mar05/03-10GrooveQA.asp Microsoft press release] on Groove acquisition, with quote from Ozzie
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20060623192425/http://spaces.msn.com/editorial/rayozzie/pub/pages/who.html Ray Ozzie's detailed work history]
*[http://spaces.msn.com/editorial/rayozzie/old/blog/index.html Ray Ozzie's pre-Microsoft Weblog]
*[http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jun06/06-15CorpNewsPR.mspx Microsoft Press Release Announcing Ozzie taking on position of Chief Software Architect]
*[http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/blog/2006/10/ray-ozzie-review.html Ray Ozzie Review] An employee's account of a 'Ray Ozzie' review
*[http://www.notes.net Lotus Notes] home page.