Eric Rudder, a former senior technical advisor to Bill Gates, will take over Microsoft's developer tools business and developer evangelism. The move puts one of the architects of the company's .NET initiative in charge of maintaining developer loyalty as the company moves to the new .NET Framework. Rudder will be promoted to senior vice president and report to Group Vice President Jim Allchin, who manages development of Windows, server products, and developer tools. Reporting to Rudder in his new Developer and Platform Evangelism Division will be Sanjay Parthasarathy's Platform Strategy Group (which formerly reported directly to chief executive officer Steve Ballmer), Yuval Neeman's Developer Tools Division, Tom Button's developer marketing team, and Mike Nash's Content Development and Delivery Group (responsible for the company's MSDN, TechNet, and microsoft.com sites, as well as courseware and certification). Prior to advising Gates, Rudder was general manager for Visual Studio.