Javier Soltero, head of Cortana, leaves Microsoft

Javier Soltero, currently responsible for Microsoft 's digital assistant, Cortana, is leaving the technology titan at the end of the year as part of a reorganization phase of the Microsoft Office sector.

The news was first reported by Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet and confirmed to Business Insider by the company. Soltero did not immediately announce his next move, but he told Business Insider that he was considering "starting to build new things again."

Soltero was a kind of rising star. He started at Microsoft in early 2014, following the acquisition of Acompli, a start-up he co-founded. In a few weeks, the Acompli email application had been changed to become Outlook for iPhone and Android, an operation considered emblematic of the adoption by new CEO Satya Nadella of the systems. Rival exploitation.

Outlook was and still is a smartphone email client, especially among business users. As the application gained traction, the influence of Soltero did the same. He quickly found himself running Outlook on all platforms and then running the strategy for the entire Microsoft Office.

At Microsoft, Soltero has the reputation of telling the truth to corporate power. In 2015, he made a thought-provoking presentation, warning employees that without a quick action to modernize Microsoft Office and Outlook, the company could find itself as useless as its competitors that it had vanquished for a long time. He told The Wall Street Journal that this presentation earned him a hate mail from his employees, who accused him of being "disrespectful" to the company's legacy.

Read more: Rising star at Microsoft says his employees sent him a hate mail for hinting that the company might fall behind

In March of this year, Soltero took command of Cortana, Microsoft's rival against Alexa, Amazon, Siri, and Google Assistant. He has been tasked with finding a niche for Cortana, which is integrated with Windows 10, but is struggling to gain ground on smartphones and elsewhere.

Soltero's departure comes as Microsoft continues to streamline the Cortana business.

The general idea, as ZDNet's Foley notes, is that Microsoft is trying to reposition Cortana as a general aide within Office – somehow a smarter and more capable successor to its infamous Clippy. To this end, Microsoft brings Cortana closer to its office operations by placing it under the auspices of Microsoft executive vice president Rajesh Jha.