Four former Microsoft executives have banded together to form a new company that is developing social-networking software and Web services that will build on top of .Net and Microsoft's forthcoming Longhorn Windows operating system.

The new venture, The Graw Group, officially launched in October 2003. The principals behind Graw include Jeremy Jaech and Ted Johnson, the co-founders of Visio.

Visio is the business drawing/diagramming software vendor that Microsoft acquired in 2000. Microsoft currently offers Visio Standard and Professional packages as part of its Office System family of products.

Johnson was corporate vice president in charge of Microsoft's Business Tools division until he quietly retired from the company in August 2003. Business Tools — which encompassed Visio, Project and MapPoint, and was part of Microsoft's information worker business unit — was disbanded around the time of Johnson's departure. The Business Tools products were reassigned to new subgroups.

Jaech served as Visio's president, CEO and chairman of the board prior to Microsoft's Visio acquisition. After the acquisition, Jaech remained at Microsoft for six months, during which time he served as the VP of the Business Tools unit. Prior to founding Visio, Jaech co-founded Aldus, and worked on the original PageMaker development team.

The Graw Group is comprised of two other former Microsoft employees. Peter Mullen, a Visio founding engineer, left Microsoft right after the Visio acquisition. And Dennis Tevlin, a former marketing executive with both the Office and MSN teams, joined Graw in December 2003 to assist with strategic and business planning.

Jaech said it is too early to talk product specifics, but that he expects to have software available for alpha testing "next fall." He added that Graw "probably won't be talking much about what we are doing until around then." But he did tell Microsoft Watch that Graw's first product can be considered to fall under the "social-networking software umbrella."

According to the company's Web site, the "Graw Group" name comes from a Seattle design firm, which created the name "Graw" 12 years ago when Visio was seeking to launch a new graphics/design product. The design firm also suggested "Visio," which eventually became the name for both the company and its flagship product.

(This is an updated version of an article that ran in the February 2, 2004, issue of the Microsoft Watch newsletter.)