Winternals, a small firm that produces many very powerful Windows utilities, has recently been purchased by Microsoft. The cost of the purchase hasn't been made public yet. This company produces some of the most commonly used Windows tools around, many of them freely available. They also produce a variety of enterprise-class software aimed specifically at Network Administrators, with nifty tools like Regmon and AD Explorer. One of the co-founders and lead programmers of Winternals, Mark Russinovich, will now work at Microsoft:

"I'll be working on challenging projects that span the entire Windows product line and directly influence subsequent generations of the most important operating systems on the planet," he said. "From security to virtualization to performance to a more manageable application model, there's no end of interesting areas to explore and innovate."
The other co-founder will also be working with Microsoft as a Software Architect. Most people see this as a positive thing, and it's hoped that the talent they have will be put to just as much good use as it was with Winternals. Anyone who has spent time in a repair shop or in an Admin position probably has found their software useful at one time or another.