Former Windows Vista VP has stealth startup: Switchbox Labs

At the airport coming back from the Consumer Electronics Show this weekend, I bumped into Michael Sievert, the former Windows marketing vice president who was responsible for the Windows Vista rollout. I asked him what he'd been up to since leaving the company last year. He said he has a software startup in the Seattle area, but he wasn't yet ready to talk about any details.

However, he has been more forthcoming in his online postings. The company's name is Switchbox Labs, according to Sievert's public LinkedIn profile. He's the CEO and co-founder. Blake Ramsdell, a veteran of such companies as Vulcan and Sendmail, is co-founder and chief architect. Bob Dickinson, another former Sendmail engineer, is chief technology officer and co-founder.

Sievert's LinkedIn profile refers to the maritime and railroad industries, but I'm thinking that's a joke, or a reference to his hobbies, because the profiles of Dickinson and Ramsdell put the company in the consumer electronics industry. Sievert was on his way back from CES, and his Blogger.com profile says he is "busy developing new consumer technology solutions."

Wait a second, Blogger.com profile? Yep, Sievert has his own blog, where he has written about such topics as consumer technology interoperability, integrating his iPhone in his late-model Lexus hybrid, and Microsoft's Live Mesh service.

State corporations records show Ramsdell, Dickinson and Sievert as the officers in a company called Dingus Labs Inc., based in Yarrow Point, but that may be a holding company or an earlier name, because all other public postings refer to Switchbox instead. The word "dingus" doesn't have the greatest connotations, for whatever it's worth.

As the former Windows marketing vice president, Sievert was one of the primary people dealing with the fallout from Windows Vista's rocky debut, according documents released in the ongoing lawsuit over Microsoft's Windows Vista Capable marketing program.

So what is Sievert up to with the new company? You could make lots of guesses based on the backgrounds of his partners, but for now it's a mystery. It's not clear if the switchboxlabs.com site is owned by the company, because the registration is private, but if it is, it might hold a clue to the company's plans: "This is switchboxlabs.com," says the placeholder, "where we think about switchbox.tv."

Eric Engleman contributed to this post.