Microsoft CIO Tony Scott leaves tech giant

Microsoft's chief information officer (CIO) Tony Scott has left his position at the company, becoming the third high-profile executive to leave the company in the last six months.

Microsoft alerted its internal staff late last week of Scott leaving reported GeekWire, while Scott himself changed his LinkedIn profile to 'former CIO', striking up suspicion.

On Tuesday Microsoft confirmed Scott's resignation with a statement: "Tony Scott decided to leave Microsoft to focus on personal projects. While at Microsoft, Tony was a strong IT leader passionate about taking Microsoft's technology to the next level and using our experiences and learnings to help customers and partners. We thank Tony for his contributions and wish him well."

Scott also personally confirmed this in an email to GeekWire and divulged his reasons for his sudden departure.

"My dad passed away at Easter time, so taking a little time to get my mother re-settled, get my instrument rating done (I'm a pilot), and work on a couple of other long delayed personal projects. Will go back to work' (in some form) in a few months, but right now just focusing on the above," Scott writes.

Since 2008, Scott was known for testing IT programs and products internally before releasing them to the public, in a process known as dogfooding'.

Microsoft's vice president of IT, Jim Dubois, will step in as interim CIO until a replacement is found.

Scott follows Microsoft's CFO, Peter Klein's who left Microsoft in mid-April and Windows head Steven Sinofsky's in November 2012.