Microsoft Buys Winternals; Russinovich Now a Softie

Microsoft announced on July 18 that it has purchased for an undisclosed sum Winternals Software, a privately held company that provides security, recovery and management tools for Windows. As part of the deal, Microsoft also gets the two Winternals founders, Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell. Russinovich becomes a technical fellow (one of about 15 or so throughout all of Microsoft), and will be part of the Platforms and Services division. Cogswell will join the Windows Component Platform team as a software architect. Microsoft’s plan is to integrate Winternals various products and technologies into existing Microsoft products (not just Windows, either). Not so coincidentally, Winternals settled a federal copy infringement lawsuit just before inking the deal with Microsoft.