New Microsoft CIO has a full and diverse resume

The new public face of Microsoft's enterprise information policies has a long and very accomplished history, plus what appears to be a personal need to make his mark on the world. That may be exactly what Microsoft needs after the last guy.

Last year, Microsoft made a decision that it wanted its Chief Information Officer to have a public-facing role, this time as the representative of the concept of "best practices" that's part of its sales pitch to enterprises. So it moved former CIO Ron Markezich from his old role as "chief beta tester," as it was then described, to a new role called Vice President of Managed Solutions. Then it effectively promoted someone it had hired seemingly by accident to also serve in a role called CIO, to be the one and only CIO.

That person was Stuart Scott, who was assigned to be the public face of "best practices." But in a move that has never been completely explained -- perhaps with good reason -- Stuart Scott was fired in November, with the only explanation being that he had violated Microsoft's company policies.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced his replacement: a man who has been a public-facing CIO or the equivalent, at four other major institutions. He is Tony Scott, who must have received some good-natured jabs about his name at his last position at the Walt Disney Company (which produces movies directed by Ridley Scott's brother Tony).

Tony Scott's resume is star-studded. He began his IT career with Marriott Hotels, which introduced him to the concept of theme park management. From there, he joined the consulting firm PriceWaterhouse, where he would take on pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb as a client. The drug firm loved him for his knowledge of SAP middleware, so in 1996 it hired him as its VP of information management -- essentially its CIO/CTO equivalent.

From there, the fun just begins. In 1999, Tony Scott's services were duly acquired by General Motors, which appointed him Chief Technology Officer. There, he seized the initiative by helping to found an open standards group for identity management called the Liberty Alliance. It's led by Sun Microsystems, and while Microsoft has been linked to it by press sources on more than one occasion, it's not actually a member. The group's aim remains to build a way for networks capable of authenticating users to share, or "federate," that authentication across network boundaries and throughout the Internet.

Such a system could help GM to identify the driver of any of its vehicles, and authenticate him after an auto accident in order to expedite emergency services through its OnStar service, Scott told InformationWeek in 2001.

InfoWorld named Tony Scott (whom we're referring to by his full name to avoid confusion with his immediate predecessor) one of its 25 Most Influential CTOs in 2002. "In a CTO role, I think that influence is a function of trust, relevance, and time," he told that publication. "Both inside and outside the company, one has to build trust, and that leads to information sharing, then collaboration, and then finally perhaps to influence."

Tony Scott made a curious comment in 2004 to Ziff-Davis that's particularly interesting considering where he's going now: He argued that software companies' warranties of reliability couldn't possibly compare with the automobile warranties from his employer at the time, even though for enterprises, that software tends to be more expensive. Vendors should be held more accountable for their software if they want to justify what they're charging for it, he said, and he cited Cisco Systems as a key example, calling it to task for explicitly stating in its license that it cannot guarantee users its network software will run "without problems or interruptions."

But that interest in the theme park and hospitality industries popped back up again. That, along with GM's financial woes, may have driven Tony Scott to join The Walt Disney Company in 2005 as its CIO. At that post, we didn't hear as much from him as from his GM CTO post. Perhaps the desire to play a more influential role drove him to Microsoft, where his new boss -- Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner -- today said he'll be expected to serve a public role. "We will call upon Tony to connect and collaborate with CIOs around the world to regularly share best practices with our customers and partners," Turner said.

Expect the new CIO to drive a new corporate focus toward thorough testing and implementation of open standards, which may seem a radical concept for Microsoft, as well as to serve as a model for devising policies and ethical standards for enterprises' information stores and networks. We should be hearing more from Tony Scott...because if we don't, someone else is likely to hire him away.