[geoffdunbar]

I worked at Microsoft from 1996 to 2011. I was a SDE and lead on Windows Media and Media Foundation. This is a cute story, but I never heard of anything like this. There is no way my management would have approved any time off to write a book on a Microsoft product. Sabbatical is possible, but everyone I knew that qualified for a sabbatical was already filthy rich from early 90s stock options, and used that time to sail around the world or something like that.

I can't rule out that such a thing did happen at Microsoft in groups that I wasn't part of, but I would be stunned if it was more than a couple of people.