Former Windows chief Sinofsky pens new blog

Less than two months after his high-profile exit from Microsoft, Steven Sinofsky looks to be staying in the tech dialog.

The former Microsoft Windows president is penning a new blog that he launched today called "Learning by Shipping." Sinofsky writes that the aim of his blog is to offer thoughts and perspectives on product development and management.

While working for Microsoft, Sinofsky wrote extensively for the company's Intranet about several of its major products, such as Windows, Internet Explorer, and Bing, as "an effort modernize the communication channels."

Here's some of his first blog post:

Along the way, there were several product-focused blogs that influenced this style and approach. We wrote about Office 2007 through a number of folks on the team. With Windows 7 and Windows 8 the team and I blogged quite a bit, and often at great length :-), about the design choices, implementation, and features of those products.

Learning by Shipping picks up where these blogs leave off. The title comes from something impressed upon me early in my career, which is that learning as an engineer comes from the process of starting, then finishing, and iterating on products-getting products to market and putting the broad feedback loop to work. The teams and processes used to create products are critically important and fun to talk about relative to shipping and learning as we search for the best approaches to use at a given time.

Sinofsky abruptly left Microsoft in November, leaving many to wonder whether he was warring with Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. He was known as a controversial and polarizing figure at the company; however, all official statements on his departure said there weren't any problems between him and the company. Despite all speculation, Sinofsky had been known inside and outside of Microsoft as a guy who got things done.

His blog seems to be a way for him to continue to think about technology product development and share those thoughts with people interested.

"In this new blog, I am hopeful that there can be a rich dialog about the 'how' and 'why' of building products in our industry and that serves as springboard for posts," he writes. "I'm not sure yet how often I will post -- this is a bit of an experiment. I will work to keep posts free of snark and ad hoc criticisms in hopes that the comments and back and forth will be the same."