Nathan Myhrvold, who has been having a rather long holiday since July last year, will not return to his job as head of Microsoft Research, although he will be a part-time advisor on strategic issues to the chairman and chief software architect. Gates is said to consider Myhrvold to be his intellectual equal. It's unclear how Myhrvold will find the time to keep up-to-date on software and strategy issues since he will be busy pursuing is interests in biotechnology, paleontology, cooking (he sometimes acts as a chef at a Seattle restaurant), the history of computing, fast cars, and philanthropy. It rather looks as though the part-time role may be a face saver. Rick Rashid was promoted yesterday to SVP in charge of Microsoft Research. He is best known for his development of the Mach operating system. Dan Ling, previously with IBM where he was the co-inventor of video-RAM dynamic memory and manager of the project that resulted in the RS/6000, was also named vp of Microsoft Research. It is curious that with such talent, Microsoft seems unable to harness it in its products.