Microsoft has lost another one of the main forces behind the company’s hardware products in general and its Surface computers in particular. Ralph Grune, who was the head of industrial design at the company, has just announced his immediate retirement from Microsoft.

Grona made his brief public announcement about his new status on his LinkedIn page (Through Windows Central), writes simply, “I am happy to share that I am now retired.” No word on why he decided to retire from Microsoft at this time.

During his time at the company, Grona was one of the driving forces behind Microsoft’s Surface PC lineup. His designs started with the original Surface RT that first launched in October 2012. In 2015, he discussed how the Surface team came up with its Dickstand feature.

Originally, the team simply glued a crude kick to a standard tablet. That name stood until a few days later, when a member of the Surface team opined that this idea of ​​adding a stand to the tablet “might actually be a good idea.” As it turned out, the Kickstand became one of the signature features of the entire Surface line of devices and has since been used by other PC manufacturers that have created Windows-based tablets.

Grona’s retirement from Microsoft comes several months after another sudden but significant departure. Panos Panai, who led the Microsoft Surface team from the beginning, and then went on to lead the entire Windows team, left the company after 19 years in September 2023. A few days later, he was appointed head of the Devices and Services team at Amazon.

With the departure of Panay and now Groene, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft’s Surface division develops. The company announced the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 for business users in late March, and consumer versions of these products are expected to launch later this year. Also in March, Microsoft named Pavan Davuluri as the new head of Windows and Surface divisions. We’ll have to wait and see how his leadership affects future Surface devices.