Simonyi is, of course, a living legend. Simonyi was employed by Microsoft Corporation from 1981, where he held titles of Director of Application Development, Chief Architect, and most recently, Distinguished Engineer. While at Microsoft, Simonyi hired and managed teams that developed Microsoft Multiplan, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and other best selling software applications. He left Microsoft in 2002 to start his own company. Here is his full bio.

I've just had a chance to read this interview he did with cnet about his new company, Intentional Software. As a non-programmer, I have to confess I'd love to see tools that enabled me to compose even simple applications. Simonyi's goal seems to be to create tools that allow programmers to point towards a business process, mapped out by a domain expert, and have that tool "write" the code.