Andy is said to have recruited Joe Belfiore, VP of the phone program who was on stage to present Windows Phone 7, and Terry Meyerson also a VP of engineering on the phone side.

FORBES: Meet Andy Lees, The Man In Charge Of Saving Microsoft

Driving on the right would bring us into line with Europe and the USA, spelling an end to the expensive process of engineering cars with steering wheels on the wrong side.

BBC: Could Britain drive on the right?

"All this money has been spent to develop efficient technologies, both on the engineering and on the manufacturing side, " says Mr Yamanouchi.

BBC: Mazda chief looks to reinvent the brand

"We are betting big on the cloud with our most successful product, and we are investing heavily both in the product engineering side and the physical infrastructure side, " Tim O'Brien, Microsoft's senior director of platform strategy, said last year when the company first unveiled a Web-based version of its Office software.

CNN: Microsoft's Office 365 available for public testing

On the hand-held side, Hewlett-Packard has just introduced the 660LX, a brilliant piece of engineering that puts a lot of laptops to shame.

FORBES: Small and beautiful

On the bright side for drivers, though, no one is better at engineering solutions to precisely this kind of problem than F1.

WSJ: Tire Trauma as Formula One Stars Feel Heat