Maritz, group vice president of Microsoft's developer group, will hand off his operational responsibilities to David Vaskevitch, currently a vice president in charge of the company's distributed application platform technology, who reports to Maritz.
Maritz plans to remain at Microsoft for the immediate future, said a Microsoft representative. The representative said Maritz, a 13-year Microsoft veteran, has not made a decision to leave the company.
Several of Microsoft's key products, including Windows NT and Windows 95, were developed under direct supervision from Maritz.
Maritz will join a new technical leadership team to advise Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.
Microsoft said earlier this month that Sam Jadallah resigned as vice president of enterprise sales; the company has lost more than half a dozen high-level executives in recent months.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.