After an impressive job redeveloping his own company’s offerings into Microsoft’s Outlook Mobile app offerings on iOS and Android, Acompli founder Javier Soltero has been promoted to Corporate Vice President of Outlook.
In an interview conducted by Re/code at the Microsoft Office 2016 launch event, details on Soltero’s new role emerges. It now appears Microsoft would like Soltero to duplicate his achievements with Outlook Mobile onto Mac and Windows versions of Outlook as well. In his interview, Soltero admits that his challenge this time around is far more delicate. Whereas, Outlook Mobile had the freedom of being created from scratch, with no legacy to cater to, the desktop versions of Outlook is installed on millions of devices around the world.
“In terms of the huge installed base, there’s always a bit of ‘who moved my cheese?’ involved in evolving products like this. We’ve come to understand that productivity software is always evolving, and it’s our responsibility to bring the customer along a journey of constant improvement as opposed to dropping major releases every few years. – Javier Soltero”
Soltero also professes to experiencing a bit of a culture shock in his transition working with Microsoft. Whereas, his work at Acompli and his previous endeavors pitted him in relatively small, tightly knit teams, he now finds himself in charge of what must be a massive group of hundreds if not thousands:
“The size of the team is a bit daunting for a guy who’s spent the last 10-plus years in companies with less than 75 people. – Javier Soltero”
Soltero founded Acompli in 2013 alongside Kevin Henrikson and J. J. Zhuang to revolutionize mobile email on iOS and Android. The company was purchased by Microsoft in December 2014 for $200 million to head up the development of Outlook Mobile for those respective platforms. Today, what remains of the company’s app has now been incorporated into Outlook Mobile. Soltero’s promotion seems to be the logical next step for the esteemed entrepreneur.